1 /* Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 Acegi Technology Pty Limited
2 *
3 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
4 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
5 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
6 *
7 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
8 *
9 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
10 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
11 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
12 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
13 * limitations under the License.
14 */
15 package org.springframework.security.acls.sid;
16
17 import java.io.Serializable;
18
19 /**
20 * A security identity recognised by the ACL system.
21 *
22 * <p>
23 * This interface provides indirection between actual security objects (eg
24 * principals, roles, groups etc) and what is stored inside an
25 * <code>Acl</code>. This is because an <code>Acl</code> will not store an
26 * entire security object, but only an abstraction of it. This interface
27 * therefore provides a simple way to compare these abstracted security
28 * identities with other security identities and actual security objects.
29 * </p>
30 *
31 * @author Ben Alex
32 * @version $Id: Sid.java 2864 2008-04-05 05:58:11Z benalex $
33 */
34 public interface Sid extends Serializable {
35 //~ Methods ========================================================================================================
36
37 /**
38 * Refer to the <code>java.lang.Object</code> documentation for the interface contract.
39 *
40 * @param obj to be compared
41 *
42 * @return <code>true</code> if the objects are equal, <code>false</code> otherwise
43 */
44 boolean equals(Object obj);
45
46 /**
47 * Refer to the <code>java.lang.Object</code> documentation for the interface contract.
48 *
49 * @return a hash code representation of this object
50 */
51 int hashCode();
52 }