org.acegisecurity.domain
Interface PersistableEntity

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractPersistableEntity, PersistableEntityInteger, PersistableEntityLong

public interface PersistableEntity

An interface that indicates an object is a persistable entity.

A persistable entity is any object that is capable of being persisted, typically via a Dao implementation.

Version:

$Id: PersistableEntity.java,v 1.2 2005/11/17 00:56:47 benalex Exp $

Author:

Ben Alex

Method Summary

Serializable

getInternalId() Provides a common getter for the persistence layer to obtain an identity, irrespective of the actual type of identity used.

Method Detail

getInternalId

Serializable getInternalId()

Provides a common getter for the persistence layer to obtain an identity, irrespective of the actual type of identity used.

Typically a subclass will delegate to a public SomePrimitiveWrapper getId() method. The necessity for the getInternalId() abstract method is solely because the persistence layer needs a way of obtaining the identity irrespective of the actual identity implementation choice.

Returning null from this method will indicate the object has never been saved. This will likely be relied on by some Dao implementations.

Returns:

the persistence identity of this instance