Certificate.java

/*
 * @(#)Certificate.java	1.38 06/10/10
 *
 * Copyright  1990-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.  
 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER  
 *   
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or  
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version  
 * 2 only, as published by the Free Software Foundation.   
 *   
 * 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  
 * General Public License version 2 for more details (a copy is  
 * included at /legal/license.txt).   
 *   
 * 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   
 *   
 * Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa  
 * Clara, CA 95054 or visit www.sun.com if you need additional  
 * information or have any questions. 
 *
 */
 
package java.security;

import java.io.*;
import java.util.Date;

/**
 * <p>This is an interface of abstract methods for managing a
 * variety of identity certificates.
 * An identity certificate is a guarantee by a principal that
 * a public key is that of another principal.  (A principal represents
 * an entity such as an individual user, a group, or a corporation.)
 *
 * <p>In particular, this interface is intended to be a common
 * abstraction for constructs that have different formats but
 * important common uses.  For example, different types of
 * certificates, such as X.509 certificates and PGP certificates,
 * share general certificate functionality (the need to encode and
 * decode certificates) and some types of information, such as a
 * public key, the principal whose key it is, and the guarantor
 * guaranteeing that the public key is that of the specified
 * principal. So an implementation of X.509 certificates and an
 * implementation of PGP certificates can both utilize the Certificate
 * interface, even though their formats and additional types and
 * amounts of information stored are different.
 *
 * <p><b>Important</b>: This interface is useful for cataloging and
 * grouping objects sharing certain common uses. It does not have any
 * semantics of its own. In particular, a Certificate object does not
 * make any statement as to the <i>validity</i> of the binding. It is
 * the duty of the application implementing this interface to verify
 * the certificate and satisfy itself of its validity.
 *
 * @version 	1.31, 02/02/00
 * @author Benjamin Renaud 
 * @deprecated A new certificate handling package is created in the Java 2 platform.
 *             This Certificate interface is entirely deprecated and
 *             is here to allow for a smooth transition to the new
 *             package.
 * @see java.security.cert.Certificate
 */
public interface Certificate {

    /** 
     * Returns the guarantor of the certificate, that is, the principal
     * guaranteeing that the public key associated with this certificate
     * is that of the principal associated with this certificate. For X.509
     * certificates, the guarantor will typically be a Certificate Authority
     * (such as the United States Postal Service or Verisign, Inc.).
     *
     * @return the guarantor which guaranteed the principal-key
     * binding.
     */
    public abstract Principal getGuarantor();
    
    /**
     * Returns the principal of the principal-key pair being guaranteed by
     * the guarantor.
     *
     * @return the principal to which this certificate is bound.  
     */
    public abstract Principal getPrincipal();

    /**
     * Returns the key of the principal-key pair being guaranteed by
     * the guarantor.
     * 
     * @return the public key that this certificate certifies belongs
     * to a particular principal.  
     */
    public abstract PublicKey getPublicKey();

    /**
     * Encodes the certificate to an output stream in a format that can
     * be decoded by the <code>decode</code> method.
     *
     * @param stream the output stream to which to encode the
     * certificate.
     *
     * @exception KeyException if the certificate is not
     * properly initialized, or data is missing, etc.
     *
     * @exception IOException if a stream exception occurs while
     * trying to output the encoded certificate to the output stream.
     *
     * @see #decode 
     * @see #getFormat
     */
    public abstract void encode(OutputStream stream) 
        throws KeyException, IOException;

    /**
     * Decodes a certificate from an input stream. The format should be
     * that returned by <code>getFormat</code> and produced by 
     * <code>encode</code>.
     *
     * @param stream the input stream from which to fetch the data
     * being decoded.
     * 
     * @exception KeyException if the certificate is not properly initialized,
     * or data is missing, etc.
     *
     * @exception IOException if an exception occurs while trying to input
     * the encoded certificate from the input stream.
     *
     * @see #encode 
     * @see #getFormat
     */
    public abstract void decode(InputStream stream) 
        throws KeyException, IOException;


    /**
     * Returns the name of the coding format. This is used as a hint to find
     * an appropriate parser. It could be "X.509", "PGP", etc. This is
     * the format produced and understood by the <code>encode</code>
     * and <code>decode</code> methods.
     * 
     * @return the name of the coding format.
     */
    public abstract String getFormat();

    /**
     * Returns a string that represents the contents of the certificate.
     *
     * @param detailed whether or not to give detailed information
     * about the certificate
     * 
     * @return a string representing the contents of the certificate
     */
    public String toString(boolean detailed);
}