| /* |
| * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one |
| * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file |
| * distributed with this work for additional information |
| * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file |
| * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the |
| * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance |
| * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at |
| * |
| * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 |
| * |
| * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, |
| * software distributed under the License is distributed on an |
| * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY |
| * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the |
| * specific language governing permissions and limitations |
| * under the License. |
| */ |
| |
| package org.netbeans.modules.xml.xam; |
| |
| /** |
| * Represents reference to a component. On writing, this indirection help serialize |
| * the referenced component as an attribute string value. On reading, the referenced |
| * can be resolved on demand. |
| * <p> |
| * Note: Client code should always check for brokeness before access the referenced. |
| * |
| * @author Chris Webster |
| * @author Rico Cruz |
| * @author Nam Nguyen |
| */ |
| |
| public interface Reference<T extends Referenceable> { |
| /** |
| * @return the referenced component. May return null if |
| * #isBroken() returns true; |
| */ |
| T get(); |
| |
| /** |
| * Returns type of the referenced. |
| */ |
| Class<T> getType(); |
| |
| /** |
| * Returns true if the reference cannot be resolved in the current document |
| */ |
| boolean isBroken(); |
| |
| /** |
| * Returns true if this reference refers to target. |
| * <p> |
| * Note: In some implementation, this method could be more efficient than |
| * invoking #get() for direct checking. |
| */ |
| boolean references(T target); |
| |
| /** |
| * @return string to use in persiting the reference as attribute string value |
| * of the containing component |
| */ |
| String getRefString(); |
| } |