1 /* 2 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more 3 * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with 4 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. 5 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 6 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with 7 * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at 8 * 9 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 10 * 11 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 12 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 13 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 14 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 15 * limitations under the License. 16 */ 17 package org.apache.commons.configuration.beanutils; 18 19 import java.util.Map; 20 21 /** 22 * <p> 23 * Definition of an interface for declaring a bean in a configuration file. 24 * </p> 25 * <p> 26 * Commons Configurations allows to define beans (i.e. simple Java objects) in 27 * configuration files, which can be created at runtime. This is especially 28 * useful if you program against interfaces and want to define the concrete 29 * implementation class is a configuration file. 30 * </p> 31 * <p> 32 * This interface defines methods for retrieving all information about a bean 33 * that should be created from a configuration file, e.g. the bean's properties 34 * or the factory to use for creating the instance. With different 35 * implementations different "layouts" of bean declarations can be 36 * supported. For instance if an XML configuration file is used, all features of 37 * XML (e.g. attributes, nested elements) can be used to define the bean. In a 38 * properties file the declaration format is more limited. The purpose of this 39 * interface is to abstract from the concrete declaration format. 40 * </p> 41 * 42 * @since 1.3 43 * @author <a 44 * href="http://commons.apache.org/configuration/team-list.html">Commons 45 * Configuration team</a> 46 * @version $Id: BeanDeclaration.java 1208756 2011-11-30 20:37:32Z oheger $ 47 */ 48 public interface BeanDeclaration 49 { 50 /** 51 * Returns the name of the {@code BeanFactory} that should be used 52 * for creating the bean instance. This can be <b>null</b>, then a default 53 * factory will be used. 54 * 55 * @return the name of the bean factory 56 */ 57 String getBeanFactoryName(); 58 59 /** 60 * Here an arbitrary object can be returned that will be passed to the bean 61 * factory. Its meaning is not further specified. The purpose of this 62 * additional parameter is to support a further configuration of the bean 63 * factory that can be placed directly at the bean declaration. 64 * 65 * @return a parameter for the bean factory 66 */ 67 Object getBeanFactoryParameter(); 68 69 /** 70 * Returns the name of the bean class, from which an instance is to be 71 * created. This value must be defined unless a default class is provided 72 * for the bean creation operation. 73 * 74 * @return the name of the bean class 75 */ 76 String getBeanClassName(); 77 78 /** 79 * Returns a map with properties that should be initialized on the newly 80 * created bean. The map's keys are the names of the properties; the 81 * corresponding values are the properties' values. The return value can be 82 * <b>null</b> if no properties should be set. 83 * 84 * @return a map with properties to be initialized 85 */ 86 Map<String, Object> getBeanProperties(); 87 88 /** 89 * Returns a map with declarations for beans that should be set as 90 * properties of the newly created bean. This allows for complex 91 * initialization scenarios: a bean for a bean that contains complex 92 * properties (e.g. other beans) can have nested declarations for defining 93 * these complex properties. The returned map's key are the names of the 94 * properties to initialize. The values are either {@code BeanDeclaration} 95 * implementations or collections thereof. They will be treated like this 96 * declaration (in a* recursive manner), and the resulting beans are 97 * assigned to the corresponding properties. 98 * 99 * @return a map with nested bean declarations 100 */ 101 Map<String, Object> getNestedBeanDeclarations(); 102 }