001    /*
002     * JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source.
003     * Copyright 2008, Red Hat Middleware LLC, and individual contributors
004     * as indicated by the @author tags. See the copyright.txt file in the
005     * distribution for a full listing of individual contributors. 
006     *
007     * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
008     * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
009     * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
010     * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
011     *
012     * This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
013     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
014     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
015     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
016     *
017     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
018     * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
019     * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
020     * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
021     */
022    package org.jboss.dna.graph.properties;
023    
024    import java.io.Serializable;
025    import net.jcip.annotations.Immutable;
026    import org.jboss.dna.common.text.TextEncoder;
027    
028    /**
029     * A representation of a reference to another node. Node references may not necessarily resolve to an existing node.
030     * @author Randall Hauch
031     */
032    @Immutable
033    public interface Reference extends Comparable<Reference>, Serializable {
034    
035        /**
036         * Get the string form of the Reference. The {@link Path#DEFAULT_ENCODER default encoder} is used to encode characters in the
037         * reference.
038         * @return the encoded string
039         * @see #getString(TextEncoder)
040         */
041        public String getString();
042    
043        /**
044         * Get the encoded string form of the Reference, using the supplied encoder to encode characters in the reference.
045         * @param encoder the encoder to use, or null if the {@link Path#DEFAULT_ENCODER default encoder} should be used
046         * @return the encoded string
047         * @see #getString()
048         */
049        public String getString( TextEncoder encoder );
050    
051    }