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* Copyright (c) 2005, 2006, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
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* under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
* published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code 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 General Public License
* version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
* 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
* Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
*
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package javax.lang.model.type;
import javax.lang.model.element.*;
import javax.lang.model.util.Types;
/**
* Represents a type in the Java programming language.
* Types include primitive types, declared types (class and interface types),
* array types, type variables, and the null type.
* Also represented are wildcard type arguments,
* the signature and return types of executables,
* and pseudo-types corresponding to packages and to the keyword {@code void}.
*
* <p> Types should be compared using the utility methods in {@link
* Types}. There is no guarantee that any particular type will always
* be represented by the same object.
*
* <p> To implement operations based on the class of an {@code
* TypeMirror} object, either use a {@linkplain TypeVisitor visitor}
* or use the result of the {@link #getKind} method. Using {@code
* instanceof} is <em>not</em> necessarily a reliable idiom for
* determining the effective class of an object in this modeling
* hierarchy since an implementation may choose to have a single
* object implement multiple {@code TypeMirror} subinterfaces.
*
* @author Joseph D. Darcy
* @author Scott Seligman
* @author Peter von der Ahé
* @see Element
* @see Types
* @since 1.6
*/
public interface TypeMirror {
/**
* Returns the {@code kind} of this type.
*
* @return the kind of this type
*/
TypeKind getKind();
/**
* Obeys the general contract of {@link Object#equals Object.equals}.
* This method does not, however, indicate whether two types represent
* the same type.
* Semantic comparisons of type equality should instead use
* {@link Types#isSameType(TypeMirror, TypeMirror)}.
* The results of {@code t1.equals(t2)} and
* {@code Types.isSameType(t1, t2)} may differ.
*
* @param obj the object to be compared with this type
* @return {@code true} if the specified object is equal to this one
*/
boolean equals(Object obj);
/**
* Obeys the general contract of {@link Object#hashCode Object.hashCode}.
*
* @see #equals
*/
int hashCode();
/**
* Returns an informative string representation of this type. If
* possible, the string should be of a form suitable for
* representing this type in source code. Any names embedded in
* the result are qualified if possible.
*
* @return a string representation of this type
*/
String toString();
/**
* Applies a visitor to this type.
*
* @param <R> the return type of the visitor's methods
* @param <P> the type of the additional parameter to the visitor's methods
* @param v the visitor operating on this type
* @param p additional parameter to the visitor
* @return a visitor-specified result
*/
<R, P> R accept(TypeVisitor<R, P> v, P p);
}