/*
* JasperReports - Free Java Reporting Library.
* Copyright (C) 2001 - 2009 Jaspersoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
* http://www.jaspersoft.com
*
* Unless you have purchased a commercial license agreement from Jaspersoft,
* the following license terms apply:
*
* This program is part of JasperReports.
*
* JasperReports is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
*
* JasperReports is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
* along with JasperReports. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
package net.sf.jasperreports.engine;
import java.util.List;
/**
* Groups several report elements. Report elements placed in any report section can be arranged in multiple
* nested groups. The only reason you might have for grouping your elements is to be able to customize the
* stretch behavior of the report elements.
* @author Teodor Danciu (teodord@users.sourceforge.net)
* @version $Id: JRElementGroup.java 3033 2009-08-27 11:46:22Z teodord $
*/
public interface JRElementGroup extends JRChild
{
/**
* Gets a list of all direct children elements or elements groups.
*/
public List getChildren();
/**
* Gets the parent element group.
* @return an instance of this class, or null if this is the root group.
*/
public JRElementGroup getElementGroup();
/**
* Gets an array containing all the elements and element groups in the hierarchy.
*/
public JRElement[] getElements();
/**
* Gets an element from this group, based on its element key.
*/
public JRElement getElementByKey(String key);
}