001/**
002 * Copyright 2005-2016 The Kuali Foundation
003 *
004 * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
007 *
008 * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php
009 *
010 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014 * limitations under the License.
015 */
016package org.kuali.rice.krad.bo;
017
018import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.ModelObjectBasic;
019
020/**
021 * Interface for classes that act as a business object within the framework
022 *
023 * <p>
024 * Business objects are special objects to the Rice framework that indicate an object has certain features
025 * (like refresh). Most business objects are persistable, see @{link PersistableBusinessObject},
026 * which means Rice can provide handle the CRUD operations performed on the object. In addition, metadata from the
027 * ORM layer will be available on these objects that is consumed by the framework to enable features.
028 * </p>
029 *
030 * <p>
031 * Business objects are a special kind of data object within the system. A data object is just a general object that
032 * provides data within the system and can be used to back the user interfaces. In general, how the system doesn't
033 * know anything about how data objects are built (for example they could come from services or some other mechanism).
034 * Make a data object implement BusinessObject causes the system to make assumptions regarding the handling of that
035 * object.
036 * </p>
037 *
038 * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
039 */
040public interface BusinessObject extends ModelObjectBasic {
041
042    /**
043     * Invoked to refresh business objects related to the parent based on their key field values
044     *
045     * <p>
046     * During processing (for example accepting user input) the field values that participate in relationships can
047     * become out of sync with the related business objects (for example: suppose our business object has a property
048     * name bookId with a related object of type Book that contains the id property. If the user changes the value
049     * for the bookId property, our id property on the related book and the associated information is still pointing
050     * to the previous book id). This method is invoked to indicate the related objects should be refreshed based
051     * on their related keys. For @{link PersistableBusinessObject} implementations, most refreshes can be handled
052     * by the ORM tool
053     * </p>
054     */
055    public abstract void refresh();
056}