Attribute.java

/**
 * Copyright (c) Codice Foundation
 * <p/>
 * This 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 any later version.
 * <p/>
 * This program 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. A copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * is distributed along with this program and can be found at
 * <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html>.
 */
package ddf.catalog.data;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * An instance of an {@link AttributeType}.
 *
 * @see AttributeType
 */
public interface Attribute extends Serializable {

    /**
     * The name of this {@link Attribute}.
     *
     * @return {@link String} - the name of this {@link Attribute}
     */
    public String getName();

    /**
     * The value of this {@link Attribute}.
     * <p>
     * If this {@link Attribute} is multivalued ( {@link AttributeDescriptor#isMultiValued()}
     * ==true), this method must return the first, if any, value as an instance of the Class
     * identified in the associated {@link AttributeDescriptor#getClass()} method.
     * </p>
     *
     * @return {@link Serializable} - the value of this {@link Attribute}
     */
    public Serializable getValue();

    /**
     * The value(s) of this {@link Attribute} as a {@link List}.
     * <p>
     * If this {@link Attribute} is <em>NOT</em> multivalued, this method must return either null or
     * a {@link List} with 0 or 1 entries depending on whether the value is null or not.
     * </p>
     *
     * @return the value(s) of this {@link Attribute} as a {@link List}
     */
    public List<Serializable> getValues();

}