Principal

public interface Principal
Known Indirect Subclasses

This interface represents the abstract notion of a principal, which can be used to represent any entity, such as an individual, a corporation, and a login id.

See Also

Public Method Summary

abstract boolean
equals(Object another)
Compares this principal to the specified object.
abstract String
getName()
Returns the name of this principal.
abstract int
hashCode()
Returns a hashcode for this principal.
boolean
implies(Subject subject)
Returns true if the specified subject is implied by this principal.
abstract String
toString()
Returns a string representation of this principal.

Public Methods

public abstract boolean equals (Object another)

Compares this principal to the specified object. Returns true if the object passed in matches the principal represented by the implementation of this interface.

Parameters
another principal to compare with.
Returns
  • true if the principal passed in is the same as that encapsulated by this principal, and false otherwise.

public abstract String getName ()

Returns the name of this principal.

Returns
  • the name of this principal.

public abstract int hashCode ()

Returns a hashcode for this principal.

Returns
  • a hashcode for this principal.

public boolean implies (Subject subject)

Returns true if the specified subject is implied by this principal.

The default implementation of this method returns true if subject is non-null and contains at least one principal that is equal to this principal.

Subclasses may override this with a different implementation, if necessary.

Parameters
subject the Subject
Returns
  • true if subject is non-null and is implied by this principal, or false otherwise.

public abstract String toString ()

Returns a string representation of this principal.

Returns
  • a string representation of this principal.