/***************************************************************************
* *
* Key.java *
* ------------------- *
* date : 15.08.2004 *
* copyright : (C) 2004-2008 Distributed and *
* Mobile Systems Group *
* Lehrstuhl fuer Praktische Informatik *
* Universitaet Bamberg *
* http://www.uni-bamberg.de/pi/ *
* email : sven.kaffille@uni-bamberg.de *
* karsten.loesing@uni-bamberg.de *
* *
* *
***************************************************************************/
/***************************************************************************
* *
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify *
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by *
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or *
* (at your option) any later version. *
* *
* A copy of the license can be found in the license.txt file supplied *
* with this software or at: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html *
* *
***************************************************************************/
package de.uniba.wiai.lspi.chord.service;
/**
* Key under which an object is stored in the chord network. This may either be
* a unique identifier if the object to be stored is unique (e.g. for white
* pages) or a known keyword or metadata information under which the object
* should be retrieved together with others (e.g. for yellow pages).
*
* Note that this key is different to the Chord ID, since the ID is calculated
* by applying a hash function on this key. Thus, this key may return an
* arbitrary long byte array with uniquely identifies the object to be stored.
*
* @author Sven Kaffille, Karsten Loesing
* @version 1.0.5
*/
public interface Key {
/**
* Returns the byte for this key which is then used to calculate a unique ID
* for storage in the chord network.
*
* @return Byte representation of the key.
*/
public abstract byte[] getBytes();
}