- /*
- * Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
- *
- * Licensed 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.commons.jxpath;
-
- import java.io.Serializable;
-
- /**
- * Pointers represent locations of objects and their properties
- * in Java object graphs. JXPathContext has methods
- * ({@link JXPathContext#getPointer(java.lang.String) getPointer()}
- * and ({@link JXPathContext#iteratePointers(java.lang.String)
- * iteratePointers()}, which, given an XPath, produce Pointers for the objects
- * or properties described the the path. For example, <code>ctx.getPointer
- * ("foo/bar")</code> will produce a Pointer that can get and set the property
- * "bar" of the object which is the value of the property "foo" of the root
- * object. The value of <code>ctx.getPointer("aMap/aKey[3]")</code> will be a
- * pointer to the 3'rd element of the array, which is the value for the key
- * "aKey" of the map, which is the value of the property "aMap" of the root
- * object.
- *
- * @author Dmitri Plotnikov
- * @version $Revision: 1.9 $ $Date: 2004/02/29 14:17:42 $
- */
- public interface Pointer extends Cloneable, Comparable, Serializable {
-
- /**
- * Returns the value of the object, property or collection element
- * this pointer represents. May convert the value to one of the
- * canonical InfoSet types: String, Number, Boolean, Set.
- *
- * For example, in the case of an XML element, getValue() will
- * return the text contained by the element rather than
- * the element itself.
- */
- Object getValue();
-
- /**
- * Returns the raw value of the object, property or collection element
- * this pointer represents. Never converts the object to a
- * canonical type: returns it as is.
- *
- * For example, for an XML element, getNode() will
- * return the element itself rather than the text it contains.
- */
- Object getNode();
-
- /**
- * Modifies the value of the object, property or collection element
- * this pointer represents.
- */
- void setValue(Object value);
-
- /**
- * Returns the node this pointer is based on.
- */
- Object getRootNode();
-
- /**
- * Returns a string that is a proper "canonical" XPath that corresponds to
- * this pointer. Consider this example:
- * <p><code>Pointer ptr = ctx.getPointer("//employees[firstName = 'John']")
- * </code>
- * <p>The value of <code>ptr.asPath()</code> will look something like
- * <code>"/departments[2]/employees[3]"</code>, so, basically, it represents
- * the concrete location(s) of the result of a search performed by JXPath.
- * If an object in the pointer's path is a Dynamic Property object (like a
- * Map), the asPath method generates an XPath that looks like this: <code>"
- * /departments[@name = 'HR']/employees[3]"</code>.
- */
- String asPath();
-
- /**
- * Pointers are cloneable
- */
- Object clone();
- }