viper.descriptors.attributes
Interface AttributeValue

All Superinterfaces:

Measurable

All Known Subinterfaces:

ExtendedAttributeValue

All Known Implementing Classes:

Attribute_circle.CircleValue, Attribute_ellipse.EllipseValue, Attribute_number.NumberValue, viper.descriptors.attributes.Attribute_polygon.AbstractPolygonValue

public interface AttributeValue

extends Measurable

All Attributes operate on Attribute values. Some may also implement Composable. These objects should implement clone, hashCode, toString and equals in addition to the methods proscribed by Measurable. Note that they should be immutable. This will make everything quicker, as there is far more cloning going on than I would like.

Author:

davidm

Nested Class Summary

Nested classes inherited from class viper.descriptors.attributes.Measurable

Measurable.Difference

Method Summary

AttributeValue	setValue(org.w3c.dom.Element el) Returns a new copy of the object set to the data the xml-dom element represents.
AttributeValue	setValue(java.lang.String S) Returns a new copy of the object with the data the String represents.
org.w3c.dom.Element	toXML(org.w3c.dom.Document doc) Returns an xml element for this object.
boolean	validate(AttributeValue v) Checks to make sure that the value can be set.

Methods inherited from interface viper.descriptors.attributes.Measurable

getDifference, getDifference, getType

Method Detail

toXML

public org.w3c.dom.Element toXML(org.w3c.dom.Document doc)

Returns an xml element for this object. It should be in the namespace Attribute.DEFAULT_NAMESPACE_QUALIFIER with a qualified name in the form Attribute.DEFAULT_NAMESPACE_QUALIFIER:type.

Parameters:

doc - The root for the element.

Returns:

New DOM element for this data.

setValue

public AttributeValue setValue(java.lang.String S)
                        throws java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Returns a new copy of the object with the data the String represents. Useful for old GTF format. The following should be true: a.equals (a.setValue (a.toString())) Should try to use XML format whenever possible.

Parameters:

S - String representation of this type of value.

Returns:

the parsed value

Throws:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException - If the data is ill-formed

setValue

public AttributeValue setValue(org.w3c.dom.Element el)
                        throws java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Returns a new copy of the object set to the data the xml-dom element represents.

Parameters:

el - DOM Node to parse

Returns:

the parsed value

Throws:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException - If the data is ill-formed

validate

public boolean validate(AttributeValue v)

Checks to make sure that the value can be set.

Parameters:

v - the value to check against this archetype

Returns:

true iff the prototype can take this value.