1 /**
2 * Copyright 2005-2015 The Kuali Foundation
3 *
4 * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
5 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
6 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
7 *
8 * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php
9 *
10 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
11 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
12 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
13 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
14 * limitations under the License.
15 */
16 package org.kuali.rice.krad.data.metadata;
17
18 import java.io.Serializable;
19
20 /**
21 * An interface for attributes common to all primary metadata objects. (name, backing object, labels, etc...)
22 *
23 * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
24 */
25 public interface MetadataCommon extends Serializable {
26
27 /**
28 * {@link MetadataMergeAction} which determines how to handle the embedding of this object when multiple metadata
29 * providers are in use.
30 *
31 * @see MetadataMergeAction
32 * @return the merge action to use when embedding this metadata when multiple metadata providers are in use
33 */
34 MetadataMergeAction getMergeAction();
35
36 /**
37 * Provider specific name of the persistent storage behind this object type. For a data object, this would likely be
38 * the table name. For an attribute, this would be the table column name. It is to be used for reference purposes
39 * only.
40 *
41 * The default implementation will return the name property if none is provided by the metadata providers.
42 *
43 * @return String representing the backing object. Must not return null.
44 */
45 String getBackingObjectName();
46
47 /**
48 * The name of the object as known to the system. This would be the class name, attribute name, etc...
49 *
50 * @return name
51 */
52 String getName();
53
54 /**
55 * The user displayed name of the object.
56 *
57 * @return user diplayed name
58 */
59 String getLabel();
60
61 /**
62 * A shorter version of the user displayed name of the object.
63 *
64 * @return short name
65 */
66 String getShortLabel();
67
68 /**
69 * A longer description of the object.
70 *
71 * This can be used to provide a more complete description of the data object and its purpose. This information can
72 * be used when displaying help information to the end-user.
73 *
74 * @return description
75 */
76 String getDescription();
77
78 /**
79 * Whether this metadata object should be considered read-only by calling code.
80 *
81 * <p>
82 * That is, the persistence layer is not likely to accept/persist an update to this object, attribute, collection,
83 * reference.
84 * </p>
85 *
86 * @return whether metadata read-only
87 */
88 boolean isReadOnly();
89 }