001/**
002 * Copyright 2005-2015 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.krms.api.repository;
017
018import org.kuali.rice.core.api.mo.common.Identifiable;
019import org.kuali.rice.krms.api.repository.type.KrmsAttributeDefinitionContract;
020
021/**
022 * Base interface intended for extension by other AttributeContract interfaces 
023 * <p>This contains the common fields shared by all KRMS attributes.</p>
024 * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
025 *
026 */
027public interface BaseAttributeContract extends Identifiable {
028
029    /**
030     * Returns the id of the attribute definition.
031     *
032     * <p>
033     * The attribute definition contains metadata about the attribute. This
034     * is a required field and may not be null or blank. Many
035     * attribute instances may share the same attribute definition.
036     * </p>
037     * @return the attribute definition id
038     */
039        public String getAttributeDefinitionId();
040
041        /**
042         * Returns the value of the attribute
043         * 
044         * @return the value of the attribute
045         */
046        public String getValue();
047
048        /**
049         * Returns a {@link KrmsAttributeDefinitionContract}.
050     * <p>This is the object referred to by the attributeDefinitionId.
051     * The full object is also kept here for performance purposes. This is because the name of the attribute
052     * is referenced often for resolving name / value attribute pairs.</p>
053     *
054     * @return the attribute definition
055         */
056        public KrmsAttributeDefinitionContract getAttributeDefinition();
057
058}