/* Copyright (c) 2008 Google Inc.
*
* 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 com.google.gdata.model;
import com.google.gdata.model.Metadata.VirtualValue;
/**
* An attribute creator allows setting attribute information, which includes the
* following pieces:
* <ul>
* <li>name: The qualified name to use for input and output. Defaults to using
* the value in the {@link AttributeKey} associated with the metadata. Setting
* the name here will override the default.</li>
* <li>required: Validates that the attribute exists in both input and output.
* Defaults to false.</li>
* <li>visible: Hides or shows an attribute in the output.
* Defaults to true.</li>
* </ul>
*
*
*/
public interface AttributeCreator extends MetadataCreator {
/**
* Sets the name of the attribute. This is used on parsing to decide which
* field to place an attriubte in, and during generation to choose the display
* name of the attribute. This should only be set to override the default
* name, which is the ID specified in the {@link AttributeKey}.
*
* @param name the new name to use for the attribute.
* @return this attribute creator for chaining.
*/
AttributeCreator setName(QName name);
/**
* Sets the requiredness of this attribute. If set to true, this attribute
* must appear in both the input and output or a validation error will occur.
* If set to false, this attribute is optional.
*
* @param required true to set the attribute to required, false to set it
* to optional (the default).
* @return this attribute creator for chaining.
*/
AttributeCreator setRequired(boolean required);
/**
* Sets whether this attribute is visible. If the attribute is not visible
* then it will not be included in the output. This can be used to hide an
* attribute in particular contexts (such as RSS or JSON output). It can
* also be used to explicitly set an attribute to visible that may be hidden
* by other metadata rules.
*
* @param visible true to make the attribute visible (the default), false to
* hide it from the output.
* @return this attribute creator for chaining.
*/
AttributeCreator setVisible(boolean visible);
/**
* Sets the virtual value for the attribute. This is used as the value
* of the attribute during parsing and generation.
*/
AttributeCreator setVirtualValue(VirtualValue virtualValue);
}