/*
* Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 Acegi Technology Pty Limited
*
* 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.springframework.security.acls.model;
import java.io.Serializable;
/**
* A security identity recognised by the ACL system.
*
* <p>
* This interface provides indirection between actual security objects (eg principals,
* roles, groups etc) and what is stored inside an <code>Acl</code>. This is because an
* <code>Acl</code> will not store an entire security object, but only an abstraction of
* it. This interface therefore provides a simple way to compare these abstracted security
* identities with other security identities and actual security objects.
* </p>
*
* @author Ben Alex
*/
public interface Sid extends Serializable {
// ~ Methods
// ========================================================================================================
/**
* Refer to the <code>java.lang.Object</code> documentation for the interface
* contract.
*
* @param obj to be compared
*
* @return <code>true</code> if the objects are equal, <code>false</code> otherwise
*/
boolean equals(Object obj);
/**
* Refer to the <code>java.lang.Object</code> documentation for the interface
* contract.
*
* @return a hash code representation of this object
*/
int hashCode();
}