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Interface PropertyConstraint

All Known Implementing Classes:

PropertyConstraint.And, PropertyConstraint.ByAnnotationType, PropertyConstraint.ByClass, PropertyConstraint.Enumeration, PropertyConstraint.ExactValue, PropertyConstraint.Or

public interface PropertyConstraint

PropertyConstraints describes a constraint applied to the members of an annotation bundle.

PropertyConstraints are usually used in conjunction with the AnnotationType interface to describe a class of annotations by the values of their properties. In this way, you can generate controlled vocabularies over Java objects.

The constraints accept or reject individual objects. In general, it is not possible to get back a set of all items that would be accepted by a particular constraint.

Instantiate PropertyConstraint classes when populating an AnnotationType instance Implement PropertyContraint to provide meta-data about a new type of object relationship. For example, if there was a data-structure representing an inheritance hierachy, then an implementation of PropertyConstraint could be written that allowed a propertie's value to be constrained to be a child of a particular node in the hierachy

Since:

1.3

Author:

Matthew Pocock, Keith James, Thomas Down

Nested Class Summary

static class	PropertyConstraint.And A property constraint that accpepts items iff they are accepted by both child constraints.
static class	PropertyConstraint.ByAnnotationType ByAnnotationType accepts a property value if it belongs to type defined by AnnotationType.
static class	PropertyConstraint.ByClass ByClass accepts a property value if it is an instance of a specific Java class.
static class	PropertyConstraint.Enumeration Enumeration accepts a property if it is present in the specified set of values.
static class	PropertyConstraint.ExactValue Matches properties if they have exactly this one value.
static class	PropertyConstraint.Or A property constraint that accepts items iff they are accepted by either child constraints.

Field Summary

static PropertyConstraint	ANY ANY is a constraint which accepts a property for addition under all conditions.
static PropertyConstraint	NONE NONE is a constraint which accepts no value for a property under any condition.

Method Summary

boolean	accept(Object value) accept returns true if the value fulfills the constraint.
boolean	subConstraintOf(PropertyConstraint subConstraint) subConstraintOf returns true if the constraint is a sub-constraint.

Field Detail

ANY

static final PropertyConstraint ANY

ANY is a constraint which accepts a property for addition under all conditions. Whenever a PropertyConstraint is needed and you want to allow any value there

NONE

static final PropertyConstraint NONE

NONE is a constraint which accepts no value for a property under any condition. Whenever a PropertyConstraint is needed and you want to dissalow all values there e.g. when marking a property as having to be unset

Method Detail

accept

boolean accept(Object value)

accept returns true if the value fulfills the constraint. Manually compare items with the PropertyConstraint. Node: this will ususaly be done for you in an AnnotationType instance Use for implementing accept() on AnnotatoinType

Parameters:

value - an Object to check.

Returns:

a boolean.

subConstraintOf

boolean subConstraintOf(PropertyConstraint subConstraint)

subConstraintOf returns true if the constraint is a sub-constraint.

A pair of constraints super and sub are in a superConstraint/subConstraint relationship if every object accepted by sub is also accepted by super. To put it another way, if instanceOf was used as a set-membership indicator function over some set of objects, then the set produced by super would be a superset of that produced by sub.

It is not expected that constraints will neccesarily maintain references to super/sub types. It will be more usual to infer this relationship by introspecting the constraints themselves. For example, PropertyConstraint.ByClass will infer subConstraintOf by looking at the possible class of all items matching subConstraint.

Useful when attempting to compare two constraints to see if it is necisary to retain both. You may want to check the more general or the more specific constraint only.

Parameters:

subConstraint - a PropertyConstraint to check.

Returns:

a boolean.