com.jcorporate.expresso.kernel
Interface ExpressoComponent

All Superinterfaces:

Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

Containable, RootContainerInterface

All Known Implementing Classes:

ComponentBase, ContainerComponentBase, EmbeddedComponent, RootContainer

public interface ExpressoComponent

extends Serializable

Base interface for an Expresso component.

This interface describes the basic minimal methods needed to implement an ExpressoComponent. If a component only implements this interface, it must create its own metadata class internally for management description, and it does not receive any component lifecycle events such as configuration events.

For typical component implementations, you do not need to implement this interface directly... rather you can derive your class from NonContainerComponentBase which provides for a basic implementation.

Author:

Michael Rimov

Method Summary

ComponentMetadata	getMetaData() Retrieve the metadata for this component.
Containable	getParent() Retrieve the parent component [if any].
void	setParent(Containable parent) Called by the parent upon initial Expresso component creation so that the child component can find it's container.

Method Detail

getMetaData

public ComponentMetadata getMetaData()

Retrieve the metadata for this component.

Returns:

Metatdata for the file. This can then be used with getInputStream() to read in and parse the data.

getParent

public Containable getParent()

Retrieve the parent component [if any]. May return null.

Returns:

ExpressoComponent or null

setParent

public void setParent(Containable parent)

Called by the parent upon initial Expresso component creation so that the child component can find it's container.

Parameters:

parent - the 'containing' component.