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 */ 027public interface DynaClass { 028 029 /** 030 * <p>Return an array of <code>ProperyDescriptors</code> for the properties 031 * currently defined in this DynaClass. If no properties are defined, a 032 * zero-length array will be returned.</p> 033 * 034 * <p><strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing 035 * <code>getBeanInfo()</code> instead, which returns property descriptors 036 * and a bunch of other stuff?</p> 037 * 038 * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass 039 */ 040 DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties(); 041 042 /** 043 * Return a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists; 044 * otherwise, return <code>null</code>. 045 * 046 * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor 047 * is requested 048 * @return The descriptor for the specified property 049 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified 050 */ 051 DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name); 052 053 /** 054 * Return the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the 055 * <code>getName()</code> method of <code>java.lang.Class</code>), which 056 * allows the same <code>DynaClass</code> implementation class to support 057 * different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties. 058 * 059 * @return the name of the DynaClass 060 */ 061 String getName(); 062 063 /** 064 * Instantiate and return a new DynaBean instance, associated 065 * with this DynaClass. 066 * 067 * @return A new <code>DynaBean</code> instance 068 * @throws IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate 069 * constructor is not accessible 070 * @throws InstantiationException if this Class represents an abstract 071 * class, an array class, a primitive type, or void; or if instantiation 072 * fails for some other reason 073 */ 074 DynaBean newInstance() throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException; 075 076}