    001/*
    002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
    003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
    004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
    005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
    006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
    007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    008 *
    009 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    010 *
    011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    015 * limitations under the License.
    016 */
    017package org.apache.commons.beanutils;
    018
    019/**
    020 * <p>A <strong>DynaClass</strong> is a simulation of the functionality of
    021 * <code>java.lang.Class</code> for classes implementing the
    022 * <code>DynaBean</code> interface.  DynaBean instances that share the same
    023 * DynaClass all have the same set of available properties, along with any
    024 * associated data types, read-only states, and write-only states.</p>
    025 *
    026 * @version $Id$
    027 */
    028
    029public interface DynaClass {
    030
    031
    032    /**
    033     * Return the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the
    034     * <code>getName()</code> method of <code>java.lang.Class</code), which
    035     * allows the same <code>DynaClass</code> implementation class to support
    036     * different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties.
    037     *
    038     * @return the name of the DynaClass
    039     */
    040    public String getName();
    041
    042
    043    /**
    044     * Return a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists;
    045     * otherwise, return <code>null</code>.
    046     *
    047     * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor
    048     *  is requested
    049     * @return The descriptor for the specified property
    050     *
    051     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified
    052     */
    053    public DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name);
    054
    055
    056    /**
    057     * <p>Return an array of <code>ProperyDescriptors</code> for the properties
    058     * currently defined in this DynaClass.  If no properties are defined, a
    059     * zero-length array will be returned.</p>
    060     *
    061     * <p><strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing
    062     * <code>getBeanInfo()</code> instead, which returns property descriptors
    063     * and a bunch of other stuff?</p>
    064     *
    065     * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass
    066     */
    067    public DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties();
    068
    069
    070    /**
    071     * Instantiate and return a new DynaBean instance, associated
    072     * with this DynaClass.
    073     *
    074     * @return A new <code>DynaBean</code> instance
    075     *
    076     * @throws IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate
    077     *  constructor is not accessible
    078     * @throws InstantiationException if this Class represents an abstract
    079     *  class, an array class, a primitive type, or void; or if instantiation
    080     *  fails for some other reason
    081     */
    082    public DynaBean newInstance()
    083            throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException;
    084
    085
    086}