Mapping.java

/*
 * Copyright 2012 Jakob Külzer
 * 
 * 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.om.core.api.mapping.field;

import org.om.core.api.annotation.Id;
import org.om.core.api.annotation.Mapped;

/**
 * Describes the persistence manager specific part of a @{@link Mapped} field.
 * 
 * @author Jakob Külzer
 * 
 */
public interface Mapping {

	/**
	 * Returns the implementation type of this mapped field. The implementation
	 * type is the class used to instantiate the entities described by this
	 * mapping.
	 * 
	 * @return
	 */
	Class<?> getImplementationType();

	/**
	 * Returns the declared type of this mapping. The declared type is used as
	 * the externally visible type of the mapped entities. This could be an
	 * interface that the actual entity implements.
	 * 
	 * <p>
	 * If the declared type is not the entity type,
	 * {@link #getImplementationType()} will return it.
	 * 
	 * @return
	 */
	Class<?> getDeclaredType();

	/**
	 * Returns true if this mapping is an {@link Id} mapping.
	 * 
	 * @return
	 */
	boolean isId();

	/**
	 * Returns if the type of the property is either Java simple type (int,
	 * float, double, ...) or java.lang.String.
	 * 
	 * @return
	 */
	boolean isPrimitiveOrWrappedType();

}