001/**
002 * Copyright 2005-2016 The Kuali Foundation
003 *
004 * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
007 *
008 * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php
009 *
010 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014 * limitations under the License.
015 */
016package org.kuali.rice.krad.data.metadata.impl;
017
018import org.kuali.rice.krad.data.metadata.MetadataCommon;
019
020/**
021 * Interface implemented by the classes within the provider, but that we don't want to expose to use outside of the
022 * krad-data module.
023 * 
024 * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
025 */
026public interface MetadataCommonInternal extends MetadataCommon {
027        /**
028         * If this data object instance is wrapping another (generated by a lower metadata provider), return that.
029         * 
030         * Returns null if this instance is not wrapping another.
031         */
032        MetadataCommon getEmbeddedCommonMetadata();
033
034        void setEmbeddedCommonMetadata(MetadataCommon embeddedCommonMetadata);
035
036        /**
037         * An object representing the object for purposes of merging. This should return an attribute name or a unique data
038         * type object.
039         * 
040         * Whatever the class, it must have proper hashCode() and equals() semantics and not rely on object identity.
041         * 
042         * This method must not return null;
043         */
044        Object getUniqueKeyForMerging();
045
046}