001/*
002 *  Copyright 2001-2013 Stephen Colebourne
003 *
004 *  Licensed under the Apache 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.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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 */
016package org.joda.beans;
017
018import java.util.NoSuchElementException;
019import java.util.Set;
020
021/**
022 * A bean consisting of a set of properties.
023 * <p>
024 * The implementation may be any class, but is typically a standard JavaBean
025 * with get/set methods. Alternate implementations might store the properties
026 * in another data structure such as a map.
027 * 
028 * @author Stephen Colebourne
029 */
030public interface Bean {
031
032    /**
033     * Gets the meta-bean representing the parts of the bean that are
034     * common across all instances, such as the set of meta-properties.
035     * 
036     * @return the meta-bean, not null
037     */
038    MetaBean metaBean();
039
040    /**
041     * Gets a property by name.
042     * 
043     * @param <R>  the property type, optional, enabling auto-casting
044     * @param propertyName  the property name to retrieve, null throws NoSuchElementException
045     * @return the property, not null
046     * @throws NoSuchElementException if the property name is invalid
047     */
048    <R> Property<R> property(String propertyName);
049
050    /**
051     * Gets the set of property names.
052     * 
053     * @return the unmodifiable map of property objects, not null
054     */
055    Set<String> propertyNames();
056
057}