/*
* Copyright (c) 1997, 2007, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
* This code 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. Oracle designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code 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 in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* 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 Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
* or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any
* questions.
*/
package javax.crypto;
/** {@collect.stats}
* A secret (symmetric) key.
*
* <p>This interface contains no methods or constants.
* Its only purpose is to group (and provide type safety for) secret keys.
*
* <p>Provider implementations of this interface must overwrite the
* <code>equals</code> and <code>hashCode</code> methods inherited from
* <code>java.lang.Object</code>, so that secret keys are compared based on
* their underlying key material and not based on reference.
*
* <p>Keys that implement this interface return the string <code>RAW</code>
* as their encoding format (see <code>getFormat</code>), and return the
* raw key bytes as the result of a <code>getEncoded</code> method call. (The
* <code>getFormat</code> and <code>getEncoded</code> methods are inherited
* from the <code>java.security.Key</code> parent interface.)
*
* @author Jan Luehe
*
* @see SecretKeyFactory
* @see Cipher
* @since 1.4
*/
public interface SecretKey extends java.security.Key {
/** {@collect.stats}
* The class fingerprint that is set to indicate serialization
* compatibility since J2SE 1.4.
*/
static final long serialVersionUID = -4795878709595146952L;
}