src/main/java/org/apache/neethi/PolicyComponent.java

/**
 * 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.apache.neethi;

import javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamException;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamWriter;

/**
 * This is an interface which any component of the framework must implement.
 */
public interface PolicyComponent {
    
    /**
     * Serializes the PolicyComponent using an XMLStreamWriter.
     *
     * @param writer the writer that the component should write itself
     * @throws XMLStreamException if an errors in the process of serialization of the
     *                            PolicyComponent.
     */
    void serialize(XMLStreamWriter writer) throws XMLStreamException;

    /**
     * Returns a short value which uniquely identify the type of the
     * PolicyComponent.
     *
     * @return Constants.TYPE_POLICY for Policy type PolicyComponent
     *         Constants.TYPE_EXACTLYONE for ExactlyOne type PolicyComponent
     *         Constants.TYPE_ALL for All type PolicyComponent
     *         Constants.TYPE_ASSERTION for Assertion type PolicyComponent
     */
    short getType();

    /**
     * Returns true if the argument is equal to self.
     *  
     * @param policyComponent the PolicyComponent to check whether self is 
     *      logically equal or not 
     * @return true if the argument is equal to self.
     */
    boolean equal(PolicyComponent policyComponent);
}