/*

  * Copyright 2006-2011 The Kuali Foundation

  *

  * Licensed under the Educational Community 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.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php

  *

  * 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.kuali.rice.shareddata.api.country;

 /**

  * Contract for a Country. Country is a basic abstraction over a Country, encapsulating its name, country code,

  * postal code, and if its restricted or not

  */

 public interface CountryContract {

     /**

      * An abbreviated String representing the unique identifying code for a given country.  This code correlates

      * directly to the alpha-2 country codes from the ISO-3166-1-alpha-2 standard.

      * <p>This property is required to exist.</p>

      *

      * @return The country code for this Country.

      */

     String getCode();

     /**

      * An alternative country code to represent a country. This code correlats directly to the alpha-3 codes

      * from the ISO_3166-1-alpha-3 standard.

      * <p>This property is optional</p>

      *

      * @return The alternate country code if it exists.  null is returned if an alternate code does not exist.

      */

     String getAlternateCode();

     /**

      * A full, familiar, name of a country.

      * <p>This property is optional</p>

      *

      * @return The name of a country if it exists.  null is returned if a full name does not exist.

      */

     String getName();

     /**

      * Value representing whether or not a country is active or not.

      *

      * @return if a country is active

      *

      * @see org.kuali.rice.kns.bo.Inactivateable

      */

     boolean isActive();

     /**

      * Value representing whether a country is restricted.

      * <p>The meaning of restricted for a country varies depending upon the implementer - for instance if a country

      * may not be used in the address of a Vendor.</p>

      *

      * <p>The default value of this property is false.</p>

      * @return if a country is restricted.

      */

     boolean isRestricted();

     /**

      * This the object version number for Country.

      *

      * @return the version number of the Country

      */

     Long getVersionNumber();

 }