001/**
002 * Copyright 2005-2014 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.kew.plugin;
017
018/**
019 * Represents an entity which can be modified.  A Modifiable records it's state when
020 * it's created.  As long as the Modifiable remains in this state then invocations of
021 * isModified() should return false.  If this state changes in a way which makes this 
022 * Modifiable "dirty" then subsequent calls to isModified() should return true.
023 * 
024 * <p>It is up to the implementor of the Modifiable to determine the contract between
025 * the Modifiable and the entities interested in it's modified status.  This could
026 * include interested entities taking action on the Modifiable once it has become
027 * modified which result in it's modified status being reset.  Another possibility is
028 * for a Modifiable to be discarded once it has been modified.
029 * 
030 * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
031 */
032public interface Modifiable {
033
034    boolean isModified();
035    
036}