org.eclipse.higgins.idas.api
Interface IEntity

All Superinterfaces:

IHasAttributes, IHasMetadata

public interface IEntity

extends IHasMetadata, IHasAttributes

As defined at http://wiki.eclipse.org/Entity and http://wiki.eclipse.org/Context, This interface holds a set of IEntity objects.

All Entities follow the http://www.eclipse.org/higgins/ontologies/2006/higgins ontology as a base. As such, each Entity has the attribute http://www.eclipse.org/higgins/ontologies/2006/higgins#uniqueIdentifier. getEntityID() provides a shortcut to access the value of this attribute. TODO (Doc): Finish javadoc on methods

Method Summary

IContext	getContext()
String	getEntityID() Returns the Contextually unique identifier of this Entity.
URI	getEntityType() Deprecated. Instead, call getModel() and from that call IModel.getType(). Doing this is equivalent to calling this method.
IEntityModel	getModel() Returns a model of this type of Entities as it defined in the context's schema.
void	remove() Removes this Entity from its Context.

Methods inherited from interface org.eclipse.higgins.idas.api.IHasMetadata

addMetadata, addMetadata, equals, getMetadata, getMetadataSet

Methods inherited from interface org.eclipse.higgins.idas.api.IHasAttributes

addAttribute, addAttribute, equals, getAttribute, getAttributes, getSingleValuedAttribute, removeAttribute, removeAttributeValue, removeAttributeValue

Method Detail

getContext

public IContext getContext()
                    throws IdASException

Returns:

The Context holding this Entity.

Throws:

IdASException

getEntityID

public String getEntityID()
                   throws IdASException

Returns the Contextually unique identifier of this Entity. This is a convenience method equivalent to reading the entity's http://www.eclipse.org/higgins/ontologies/2006/higgins#uniqueIdentifier attribute.

Returns:

Contextually unique identifier of this Entity

Throws:

IdASException

getEntityType

public URI getEntityType()
                  throws IdASException

Deprecated. Instead, call getModel() and from that call IModel.getType(). Doing this is equivalent to calling this method.

Returns the type of this Entity. For example: http://www.eclipse.org/higgins/ontologies/2006/person#Person

Returns:

This Entity's type

Throws:

IdASException

remove

public void remove()
            throws IdASException

Removes this Entity from its Context. Note: This operation is only applied to any backing data store after IContext.applyUpdates() is called.
Note: It is invalid to call subsequent update operations on this IEntity instance or on any elements held by this Entity or by any of its sub-elements.

Throws:

IdASException

getModel

public IEntityModel getModel()
                      throws IdASException

Returns a model of this type of Entities as it defined in the context's schema. Returned model could be used to discover what attributes are defined in the context's schema for this type of Entities.

Returns:

the model of this Entity

Throws:

IdASException