cdmlib-model/src/main/java/eu/etaxonomy/cdm/model/common/ISelfDescriptive.java

   1 package eu.etaxonomy.cdm.model.common;
   2
   3 /**
   4  * An interface especially meant to be implemented by entities that can provide a
   5  * meaningful description of themselves. If an entity implements this interface, and it
   6  * turns out to violate some validation constraint, the CVI will use will use the methods
   7  * of this interface when saving data to the error tables, rather than defaults that might
   8  * not be very intelligible to the end user. See the invidual methods for what those
   9  * defaults are for entity. In fact, {@link CdmBase} implements this interface, but just
  10  * returns the defaults for each method.
  11  *
  12  * @author ayco_holleman
  13  *
  14  */
  15 public interface ISelfDescriptive {
  16
  17         /**
  18          * A user-friendly description of the type of the object. Default: the simple name of
  19          * the class of the object.
  20          *
  21          */
  22         String getUserFriendlyTypeName();
  23
  24
  25         /**
  26          * A user-friendly description of the object itself. Default:
  27          * {@link Object#toString()}.
  28          */
  29         String getUserFriendlyDescription();
  30
  31
  32         /**
  33          * A user-friendly name for the specified field (presumably a field that was found to
  34          * be invalid by the CVI). Default: the returned as-is.
  35          *
  36          * @param fieldName
  37          */
  38         String getUserFriendlyFieldName(String field);
  39
  40 }