1 /*
2 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
3 * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
4 * distributed with this work for additional information
5 * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
6 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
7 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
8 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
9 *
10 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
11 *
12 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
13 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
14 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
15 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
16 * limitations under the License.
17 */
18 package net.jini.core.entry;
19
20 /**
21 * <p>
22 * This class is the supertype of all entries that can be stored in a Jini
23 * Lookup service.
24 * </p><p>
25 * Each field of an entry must be a public reference (object) type. You cannot
26 * store primitive types in fields of an <code>Entry</code>. An
27 * <code>Entry</code> may have any number of methods or constructors. Each field
28 * is serialized separately, so references between two fields of an entry will
29 * not be reconstituted to be shared references, but instead to separate copies
30 * of the original object.
31 * </p><p>
32 * Implementors notes:
33 * <ul>
34 * <li> New public non-final fields added to an Entry after deployment must be
35 * appended below existing fields to avoid breaking backward compatiblity.
36 * <li> If an Entry implementation is extended by a child class, new public,
37 * non-final fields cannot be added to the parent class, doing so will break
38 * backward compatibility with the child class.
39 * <li> Changing the order of fields in an existing Entry implementation will
40 * break backward compatibility.
41 * <li> Removing fields from an Entry after deployment will break backward
42 * compatiblity.
43 * </ul>
44 * <p>
45 * Recommended practice for backward compatible evolution of Entry's:
46 * </p>
47 * <ol>
48 * <li> Do not change or add public non-final fields to an Entry after
49 * deployment, subclass instead.
50 * <li> Only append public non-final fields to a final Entry class.
51 * <li> Use super-types and interfaces for fields where possible, to allow more
52 * flexibility.
53 * <li> Only use org.apache.river.lookup.util.ConsistentMap or
54 * org.apache.river.lookup.util.ConsistentSet Collection types, or use arrays.
55 * </ol>
56 *
57 * @author Sun Microsystems, Inc.
58 *
59 *
60 * @since 1.0
61 */
62 public interface Entry extends java.io.Serializable {
63 }