001    /**
002     * Copyright 2005-2013 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     */
016    package org.kuali.rice.krad.bo;
017    
018    import 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     */
040    public 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    }