1/*
2 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
3 *  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
4 *  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
5 *  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
6 *  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
7 *  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
8 *
9 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
10 *
11 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
12 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
13 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
14 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
15 *  limitations under the License.
16 */
17
18package java.security;
19
20
21/**
22 * {@code Principal}s are objects which have identities. These can be
23 * individuals, groups, corporations, unique program executions, etc.
24 */
25public interface Principal {
26    /**
27     * Compares the specified object with this {@code Principal} for equality
28     * and returns {@code true} if the specified object is equal, {@code false}
29     * otherwise.
30     *
31     * @param obj
32     *            object to be compared for equality with this {@code
33     *            Principal}.
34     * @return {@code true} if the specified object is equal to this {@code
35     *         Principal}, otherwise {@code false}.
36     */
37    public boolean equals( Object obj );
38
39    /**
40     * Returns the name of this {@code Principal}.
41     *
42     * @return the name of this {@code Principal}.
43     */
44    public String getName();
45
46    /**
47     * Returns the hash code value for this {@code Principal}. Returns the same
48     * hash code for {@code Principal}s that are equal to each other as
49     * required by the general contract of {@link Object#hashCode}.
50     *
51     * @return the hash code value for this {@code Principal}.
52     * @see Object#equals(Object)
53     * @see Principal#equals(Object)
54     */
55    public int hashCode();
56
57    /**
58     * Returns a string containing a concise, human-readable description of
59     * this {@code Principal}.
60     *
61     * @return a printable representation for this {@code Principal}.
62     */
63    public String toString();
64}
65