/*

  * Copyright 2011 The Kuali Foundation

  *

  * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 1.0 (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/ecl1.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.core.api.criteria;

 import java.util.List;

 import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;

 import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;

 import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

 import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlType;

 /**

  * Defines a criteria statement which will form part of a query.  The Criteria

  * is itself a composite expression which represents an implicit "And" on it's

  * list of expressions.

  * 

  * <p>To construct a new Criteria instance, the {@link CriteriaBuilder} should

  * be used. Once all expressions have been established on the builder, the

  * {@link CriteriaBuilder#build()} method can be invoked to construct the

  * Criteria. The resulting Criteria object is both immutable and thread-safe,

  * along with all expressions contained therein.

  * 

  * <p>A criteria itself could be empty.  In which case it is expected that any

  * query performed using that criteria should produce all records of the target

  * data being queried.

  *

  * @see CriteriaBuilder

  * @see QueryByCriteria

  * 

  * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)

  */

 @XmlRootElement(name = Criteria.Constants.ROOT_ELEMENT_NAME)

 @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.NONE)

 @XmlType(name = Criteria.Constants.TYPE_NAME)

 public final class Criteria extends AbstractCompositeExpression {

         private static final long serialVersionUID = -8662772314094715831L;

         /**

          * Used only by JAXB.

          */

         @SuppressWarnings("unused")

         private Criteria() {

                 super();

         }

         /**

          * Constructor meant to be used only by the {@link CriteriaBuilder}

          * 

          * @param expressions the expressions to use when constructing this criteria, can be null or empty

          * 

          * @see AbstractCompositeExpression#AbstractCompositeExpression(List)

          */

         Criteria(List<Expression> expressions) {

             super(expressions);

         }

         /**

      * Defines some internal constants used on this class.

      */

     static class Constants {

         final static String ROOT_ELEMENT_NAME = "criteria";

         final static String TYPE_NAME = "CriteriaType";

     }

 }