/*
* Copyright (c) 2008, 2009 Sun Microsystems. All rights reserved.
*
* This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
* terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 and Eclipse Distribution License v. 1.0
* which accompanies this distribution.
* The Eclipse Public License is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
* and the Eclipse Distribution License is available at
* http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/edl-v10.php.
*
* Contributors:
* Linda DeMichiel - Java Persistence 2.0 - Version 2.0 (October 1, 2009)
* Specification available from http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=317
*/
// $Id: Bindable.java 20957 2011-06-13 09:58:51Z stliu $
package javax.persistence.metamodel;
/**
* Instances of the type <code>Bindable</code> represent object or attribute types
* that can be bound into a {@link javax.persistence.criteria.Path Path}.
*
* @param <T> The type of the represented object or attribute
* @since Java Persistence 2.0
*/
public interface Bindable<T> {
public static enum BindableType {
/**
* Single-valued attribute type
*/
SINGULAR_ATTRIBUTE,
/**
* Multi-valued attribute type
*/
PLURAL_ATTRIBUTE,
/**
* Entity type
*/
ENTITY_TYPE
}
/**
* Return the bindable type of the represented object.
*
* @return bindable type
*/
BindableType getBindableType();
/**
* Return the Java type of the represented object.
* If the bindable type of the object is <code>PLURAL_ATTRIBUTE</code>,
* the Java element type is returned. If the bindable type is
* <code>SINGULAR_ATTRIBUTE</code> or <code>ENTITY_TYPE</code>,
* the Java type of the
* represented entity or attribute is returned.
*
* @return Java type
*/
Class<T> getBindableJavaType();
}