/**

  * Copyright 2005-2011 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.kim.api.type;

 import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.common.GloballyUnique;

 import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.common.Identifiable;

 import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.common.Versioned;

 import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.common.active.Inactivatable;

 import java.util.List;

 /**

  * This is the contract for a KimType.  A KimType is a metadata wrapper around a

  * kim type service which aides in attribute resolution.

  */

 public interface KimTypeContract extends Versioned, GloballyUnique, Identifiable, Inactivatable {

     /**

      * The service name used to resolve attribute values.

      *

      * @return the service name

      */

     String getServiceName();

     /**

      * The namespace code that this kim type belongs too.

      *

      * @return namespace code

      */

     String getNamespaceCode();

     /**

      * The name of the kim type.

      *

      * @return the name

      */

     String getName();

     /**

      * The list of attribute definitions associated with the kim type. This cannot be null.  If no

      * attribute definitions are associated with the kim type then this will return an empty collection.

      *

      * @return the list of attribute definitions

      */

     List<? extends KimTypeAttributeContract> getAttributeDefinitions();

 }