Property.java

/*
 * JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source
 * Copyright 2011, Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates, and individual
 * contributors by the @authors tag. See the copyright.txt in the
 * distribution for a full listing of individual contributors.
 *
 * 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 org.jboss.solder.properties;

import java.lang.reflect.AnnotatedElement;
import java.lang.reflect.Member;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import java.security.PrivilegedAction;

/**
 * A representation of a JavaBean style property
 *
 * @param <V> the type of the properties value
 * @author Pete Muir
 * @author Shane Bryzak
 * @see Properties
 */
public interface Property<V> {
    /**
     * Returns the name of the property. If the property is a field, then the
     * field name is returned. Otherwise, if the property is a method, then the
     * name that is returned is the getter method name without the "get" or "is"
     * prefix, and a lower case first letter.
     *
     * @return The name of the property
     */
    public String getName();

    /**
     * Returns the property type
     *
     * @return The property type
     */
    public Type getBaseType();

    /**
     * Returns the property type
     *
     * @return The property type
     */
    public Class<V> getJavaClass();

    /**
     * Get the element responsible for retrieving the property value
     *
     * @return
     */
    public AnnotatedElement getAnnotatedElement();

    /**
     * Get the member responsible for retrieving the property value
     *
     * @return
     */
    public Member getMember();

    /**
     * Returns the property value for the specified bean. The property to be
     * returned is either a field or getter method.
     *
     * @param bean The bean to read the property from
     * @return The property value
     * @throws ClassCastException if the value is not of the type V
     */
    public V getValue(Object instance);

    /**
     * This method sets the property value for a specified bean to the specified
     * value. The property to be set is either a field or setter method.
     *
     * @param bean  The bean containing the property to set
     * @param value The new property value
     */
    public void setValue(Object instance, V value);

    /**
     * Returns the class that declares the property
     *
     * @return
     */
    public Class<?> getDeclaringClass();

    /**
     * Indicates whether this is a read-only property
     *
     * @return
     */
    boolean isReadOnly();

    /**
     * Calls the setAccessible method on the underlying member(s).
     * <p/>
     * The operation should be performed within a {@link PrivilegedAction}
     */
    public void setAccessible();
}