1 /*
2 Copyright 2008 Ramon Servadei
3
4 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
5 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
6 You may obtain a copy of the License at
7
8 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
9
10 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
11 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
12 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
13 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
14 limitations under the License.
15 */
16 package fulmine;
17
18 /**
19 * Provides complimentary operations to the {@link Object#toString()} method.
20 * These provide greater and lesser detail.
21 *
22 * @author Ramon Servadei
23 */
24 public interface IDescriptor
25 {
26 /**
27 * Get a string that provides the identification for this object. This
28 * should have no more detail than the {@link Object#toString()} method.
29 *
30 * @return a string that provides the identification for this object
31 */
32 String toIdentityString();
33
34 /**
35 * Provides a formatted string describing this object in detail. This has
36 * the same or more information than the standard {@link Object#toString()}
37 * method.
38 *
39 * @return a formatted string describing this object in detail
40 */
41 String toDetailedString();
42 }