/**

  * 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.common.attribute;

 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;

 /**

  * This is the contract for a KimAttribute.  A KimAttribute

  * associates categorizes an attribute and describes how to

  * find the attribute for the purpose of the kns.

  */

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

     /**

      * A fully-qualified class name which contains the {@link #getAttributeName()}.    This cannot be null or a blank string.

      *

      * @return the name

      */

     String getComponentName();

     /**

      * The name of the attribute on the {@link #getComponentName()}.   This cannot be null or a blank string.

      *

      * @return the name

      */

     String getAttributeName();

     /**

      * The namespace code that this kim attribute belongs too.   This cannot be null or a blank string.

      *

      * @return namespace code

      */

     String getNamespaceCode();

     /**

      * The label for the kim attribute.  This is optional and can be null or blank.

      *

      * @return the label

      */

     String getAttributeLabel();

 }