001 /* 002 * JBoss DNA (http://www.jboss.org/dna) 003 * See the COPYRIGHT.txt file distributed with this work for information 004 * regarding copyright ownership. Some portions may be licensed 005 * to Red Hat, Inc. under one or more contributor license agreements. 006 * See the AUTHORS.txt file in the distribution for a full listing of 007 * individual contributors. 008 * 009 * JBoss DNA is free software. Unless otherwise indicated, all code in JBoss DNA 010 * is licensed to you under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as 011 * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of 012 * the License, or (at your option) any later version. 013 * 014 * JBoss DNA is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 015 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 016 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU 017 * Lesser General Public License for more details. 018 * 019 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public 020 * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free 021 * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 022 * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org. 023 */ 024 package org.jboss.dna.graph.property; 025 026 import java.io.Serializable; 027 import net.jcip.annotations.Immutable; 028 import org.jboss.dna.common.text.TextEncoder; 029 030 /** 031 * A representation of a reference to another node. Node references may not necessarily resolve to an existing node. 032 * @author Randall Hauch 033 */ 034 @Immutable 035 public interface Reference extends Comparable<Reference>, Serializable { 036 037 /** 038 * Get the string form of the Reference. The {@link Path#DEFAULT_ENCODER default encoder} is used to encode characters in the 039 * reference. 040 * @return the encoded string 041 * @see #getString(TextEncoder) 042 */ 043 public String getString(); 044 045 /** 046 * Get the encoded string form of the Reference, using the supplied encoder to encode characters in the reference. 047 * @param encoder the encoder to use, or null if the {@link Path#DEFAULT_ENCODER default encoder} should be used 048 * @return the encoded string 049 * @see #getString() 050 */ 051 public String getString( TextEncoder encoder ); 052 053 }