| /* |
| * Copyright (c) 1998, 2017, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
| * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. |
| * |
| * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it |
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| * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this |
| * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided |
| * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. |
| * |
| * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT |
| * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or |
| * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License |
| * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that |
| * accompanied this code). |
| * |
| * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version |
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| * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. |
| * |
| * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA |
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| */ |
| |
| /** |
| * Contains classes related to developing <em>beans</em> -- components based on |
| * the JavaBeans™ architecture. A few of the classes are used by beans |
| * while they run in an application. For example, the event classes are used by |
| * beans that fire property and vetoable change events (see |
| * {@link java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent}). However, most of the classes in this |
| * package are meant to be used by a bean editor (that is, a development |
| * environment for customizing and putting together beans to create an |
| * application). In particular, these classes help the bean editor create a user |
| * interface that the user can use to customize the bean. For example, a bean |
| * may contain a property of a special type that a bean editor may not know how |
| * to handle. By using the {@code PropertyEditor} interface, a bean developer |
| * can provide an editor for this special type. |
| * <p> |
| * To minimize the resources used by a bean, the classes used by bean editors |
| * are loaded only when the bean is being edited. They are not needed while the |
| * bean is running in an application and therefore not loaded. This information |
| * is kept in what's called a bean-info (see {@link java.beans.BeanInfo}). |
| * <p> |
| * Unless explicitly stated, null values or empty Strings are not valid |
| * parameters for the methods in this package. You may expect to see exceptions |
| * if these parameters are used. |
| * |
| * <h2>Long-Term Persistence</h2> |
| * As of v1.4, the {@code java.beans} package provides support for <em>long-term |
| * persistence</em> -- reading and writing a bean as a textual representation of |
| * its property values. The property values are treated as beans, and are |
| * recursively read or written to capture their publicly available state. This |
| * approach is suitable for long-term storage because it relies only on public |
| * API, rather than the likely-to-change private implementation. |
| * |
| * <blockquote><hr><b>Note:</b> The persistence scheme cannot automatically |
| * instantiate custom inner classes, such as you might use for event handlers. |
| * By using the {@link java.beans.EventHandler} class instead of inner classes |
| * for custom event handlers, you can avoid this problem.<hr></blockquote> |
| * <p> |
| * You read and write beans in XML format using the |
| * {@link java.beans.XMLDecoder} and {@link java.beans.XMLEncoder} classes, |
| * respectively. One notable feature of the persistence scheme is that reading |
| * in a bean requires no special knowledge of the bean. |
| * <p> |
| * Writing out a bean, on the other hand, sometimes requires special knowledge |
| * of the bean's type. If the bean's state can be expressed using only the |
| * no-argument constructor and public getter and setter methods for properties, |
| * no special knowledge is required. Otherwise, the bean requires a custom |
| * <em>persistence delegate</em> -- an object that is in charge of writing out |
| * beans of a particular type. All classes provided in the JDK that descend from |
| * {@code java.awt.Component}, as well as all their properties, automatically |
| * have persistence delegates. |
| * <p> |
| * If you need (or choose) to provide a persistence delegate for a bean, you can |
| * do so either by using a {@link java.beans.DefaultPersistenceDelegate} |
| * instance or by creating your own subclass of {@code PersistenceDelegate}. If |
| * the only reason a bean needs a persistence delegate is because you want to |
| * invoke the bean's constructor with property values as arguments, you can |
| * create the bean's persistence delegate with the one-argument |
| * {@code DefaultPersistenceDelegate} constructor. Otherwise, you need to |
| * implement your own persistence delegate, for which you're likely to need the |
| * following classes: |
| * <dl> |
| * <dt>{@link java.beans.PersistenceDelegate}</dt> |
| * <dd>The abstract class from which all persistence delegates descend. Your |
| * subclass should use its knowledge of the bean's type to provide whatever |
| * {@code Statement}s and {@code Expression}s are necessary to create the |
| * bean and restore its state.</dd> |
| * <dt>{@link java.beans.Statement}</dt> |
| * <dd>Represents the invocation of a single method on an object. Includes |
| * a set of arguments to the method.</dd> |
| * <dt>{@link java.beans.Expression}</dt> |
| * <dd>A subclass of {@code Statement} used for methods that return a |
| * value.</dd> |
| * </dl> |
| * <p> |
| * Once you create a persistence delegate, you register it using the |
| * {@code setPersistenceDelegate} method of {@code XMLEncoder}. |
| * |
| * <h2>Related Documentation</h2> |
| * For overview, architecture, and tutorial documentation, please see: |
| * <ul> |
| * <li><a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/javabeans/"> |
| * JavaBeans</a>, a trail in <em>The Java Tutorial</em>.</li> |
| * <li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/persistence2-141443.html"> |
| * Long-Term Persistence</a>, an article in |
| * <em>The Swing Connection</em>.</li> |
| * </ul> |
| */ |
| package java.beans; |