org.osgi.service.metatype

Interface AttributeDefinition

All Known Implementing Classes:

AD

@ConsumerType
public interface AttributeDefinition

An interface to describe an attribute.

An AttributeDefinition object defines a description of the data type of a property/attribute.

Author:

$Id: 057587a3ca5e0610db4c85d33c84eb614c3d2718 $

ThreadSafe

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field and Description
static int	BIGDECIMAL Deprecated. As of 1.1.
static int	BIGINTEGER Deprecated. As of 1.1.
static int	BOOLEAN The BOOLEAN type.
static int	BYTE The BYTE type.
static int	CHARACTER The CHARACTER type.
static int	DOUBLE The DOUBLE type.
static int	FLOAT The FLOAT type.
static int	INTEGER The INTEGER type.
static int	LONG The LONG type.
static int	PASSWORD The PASSWORD type.
static int	SHORT The SHORT type.
static int	STRING The STRING type.

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
int	getCardinality() Return the cardinality of this attribute.
java.lang.String[]	getDefaultValue() Return a default for this attribute.
java.lang.String	getDescription() Return a description of this attribute.
java.lang.String	getID() Unique identity for this attribute.
java.lang.String	getName() Get the name of the attribute.
java.lang.String[]	getOptionLabels() Return a list of labels of option values.
java.lang.String[]	getOptionValues() Return a list of option values that this attribute can take.
int	getType() Return the type for this attribute.
java.lang.String	validate(java.lang.String value) Validate an attribute in String form.

Field Detail

STRING

static final int STRING

The STRING type.

Attributes of this type should be stored as String, List<String> or String[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

LONG

static final int LONG

The LONG type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Long, List<Long> or long[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

INTEGER

static final int INTEGER

The INTEGER type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Integer, List<Integer> or int[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

SHORT

static final int SHORT

The SHORT type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Short, List<Short> or short[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

CHARACTER

static final int CHARACTER

The CHARACTER type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Character, List<Character> or char[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

BYTE

static final int BYTE

The BYTE type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Byte, List<Byte> or byte[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

DOUBLE

static final int DOUBLE

The DOUBLE type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Double, List<Double> or double[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

FLOAT

static final int FLOAT

The FLOAT type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Float, List<Float> or float[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

BIGINTEGER

static final int BIGINTEGER

Deprecated. As of 1.1.

The BIGINTEGER type. Attributes of this type should be stored as BigInteger, List<BigInteger> or BigInteger[] objects, depending on the getCardinality() value.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

BIGDECIMAL

static final int BIGDECIMAL

Deprecated. As of 1.1.

The BIGDECIMAL type. Attributes of this type should be stored as BigDecimal, List<BigDecimal> or BigDecimal[] objects depending on getCardinality().

See Also:

Constant Field Values

BOOLEAN

static final int BOOLEAN

The BOOLEAN type. Attributes of this type should be stored as Boolean, List<Boolean> or boolean[] objects depending on getCardinality().

See Also:

Constant Field Values

PASSWORD

static final int PASSWORD

The PASSWORD type. Attributes of this type must be stored as String, List<String> or String[] objects depending on getCardinality(). A PASSWORD must be treated as a string but the type can be used to disguise the information when displayed to a user to prevent others from seeing it.

Since:

1.2

See Also:

Constant Field Values

Method Detail

getName

java.lang.String getName()

Get the name of the attribute. This name may be localized.

Returns:

The localized name of the definition.

getID

java.lang.String getID()

Unique identity for this attribute. Attributes share a global namespace in the registry. For example, an attribute cn or commonName must always be a String and the semantics are always a name of some object. They share this aspect with LDAP/X.500 attributes. In these standards the OSI Object Identifier (OID) is used to uniquely identify an attribute. If such an OID exists, (which can be requested at several standard organizations and many companies already have a node in the tree) it can be returned here. Otherwise, a unique id should be returned which can be a Java class name (reverse domain name) or generated with a GUID algorithm. Note that all LDAP defined attributes already have an OID. It is strongly advised to define the attributes from existing LDAP schemes which will give the OID. Many such schemes exist ranging from postal addresses to DHCP parameters.

Returns:

The id or oid

getDescription

java.lang.String getDescription()

Return a description of this attribute. The description may be localized and must describe the semantics of this type and any constraints.

Returns:

The localized description of the definition.

getCardinality

int getCardinality()

Return the cardinality of this attribute. The OSGi environment handles multi valued attributes in arrays ([]) or in List objects. The return value is defined as follows:

 
    x = Integer.MIN_VALUE    no limit, but use List
    x < 0                    -x = max occurrences, store in List
    x > 0                     x = max occurrences, store in array []
    x = Integer.MAX_VALUE    no limit, but use array []
    x = 0                     1 occurrence required
 
 

Returns:

The cardinality of this attribute.

getType

int getType()

Return the type for this attribute.

Defined in the following constants which map to the appropriate Java type. STRING,LONG,INTEGER, SHORT, CHARACTER, BYTE,DOUBLE,FLOAT, BOOLEAN, PASSWORD.

Returns:

The type for this attribute.

getOptionValues

java.lang.String[] getOptionValues()

Return a list of option values that this attribute can take.

If the function returns null, there are no option values available.

Each value must be acceptable to validate() (return "") and must be a String object that can be converted to the data type defined by getType() for this attribute.

This list must be in the same sequence as getOptionLabels(). That is, for each index i in getOptionValues, i in getOptionLabels() should be the label.

For example, if an attribute can have the value male, female, unknown, this list can return new String[] { "male", "female", "unknown" }.

Returns:

A list values

getOptionLabels

java.lang.String[] getOptionLabels()

Return a list of labels of option values.

The purpose of this method is to allow menus with localized labels. It is associated with getOptionValues. The labels returned here are ordered in the same way as the values in that method.

If the function returns null, there are no option labels available.

This list must be in the same sequence as the getOptionValues() method. That is, for each index i in getOptionLabels, i in getOptionValues() should be the associated value.

For example, if an attribute can have the value male, female, unknown, this list can return (for dutch) new String[] { "Man", "Vrouw", "Onbekend" }.

Returns:

A list values

validate

java.lang.String validate(java.lang.String value)

Validate an attribute in String form. An attribute might be further constrained in value. This method will attempt to validate the attribute according to these constraints. It can return three different values:

  null           No validation present
  ""             No problems detected
  "..."          A localized description of why the value is wrong
 

If the cardinality of this attribute is multi-valued then this string must be interpreted as a comma delimited string. The complete value must be trimmed from white space as well as spaces around commas. Commas ( ',' \u002C) and spaces (' ' \u0020) and backslashes ('\' \u005C) can be escaped with another backslash. Escaped spaces must not be trimmed. For example:

 value="  a\,b,b\,c,\ c\\,d   " => [ "a,b", "b,c", " c\", "d" ]
 

Parameters:

value - The value before turning it into the basic data type. If the cardinality indicates a multi-valued attribute then the given string must be escaped.

Returns:

null, "", or another string

getDefaultValue

java.lang.String[] getDefaultValue()

Return a default for this attribute. The object must be of the appropriate type as defined by the cardinality and getType(). The return type is a list of String objects that can be converted to the appropriate type. The cardinality of the return array must follow the absolute cardinality of this type. For example, if the cardinality = 0, the array must contain 1 element. If the cardinality is 1, it must contain 0 or 1 elements. If it is -5, it must contain from 0 to max 5 elements. Note that the special case of a 0 cardinality, meaning a single value, does not allow arrays or lists of 0 elements.

Returns:

Return a default value or null if no default exists.