org.opengis.feature

Interface Property

All Known Subinterfaces:

Association, Attribute, ComplexAttribute, Feature, GeometryAttribute, SimpleFeature

All Known Implementing Classes:

AssociationImpl, AttributeImpl, ComplexAttributeImpl, DecoratingFeature, FeatureImpl, GeometryAttributeImpl, JDBCFeatureReader.ResultSetFeature, MongoDBObjectFeature, MongoFeature, PreGeneralizedSimpleFeature, PropertyImpl, ReadonlyAttributeDecorator, SimpleFeatureImpl

public interface Property

An instance of a PropertyType relised as a Attribute or Association.

A property is a wrapper around an arbitrary object or value. The value is available via the getValue() and setValue(Object).

  Property property = ...;

  //set the value
  property.setValue( "foo" );

  //get the value
  String value = (String) property.getValue();
 

Every property has a type. This PropertyType defines information about the property. This includes which java class the value of the property is an instance of, any restrictions on the value, etc... The type is available via the getType() method.

   Property property = ...;

   //get the type
   PropertyType type = property.getType();

   //get the class of the value
   Class<String> valueClass = (Class<String>)type.getBinding();

 

A property can often be part of another entity such as a Feature or ComplexAttribute. When this is the case, the relationship between the property and its "container" is described by a PropertyDescriptor. The descriptor of a property defines things like nilablility, multiplicity, etc... See the javadoc of PropertyDescriptor for more details. The descriptor is available via the getDescriptor() method.

   Property property = ...;

   //get the descriptor
   PropertyDescriptor descriptor = property.getDescriptor()l

   //is the value allowed to be null?
   descriptor.isNillable();

   //how many instances of this property are allowed?
   descriptor.getMaxOccurs();
 

Author:

Jody Garnett (Refractions Research), Justin Deoliveira (The Open Planning Project)

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
PropertyDescriptor	getDescriptor() The PropertyDscriptor of the property, null if this is a top-level value.
Name	getName() The name of the property with respect to its descriptor.
PropertyType	getType() The type of the property.
Map<Object,Object>	getUserData() A map of "user data" which enables applications to store "application-specific" information against a property.
Object	getValue() The value or content of the property.
boolean	isNillable() Flag indicating if null is an acceptable value for the property.
void	setValue(Object newValue) Sets the value or content of the property.

Method Detail

getValue

Object getValue()

The value or content of the property.

The class of this object is defined by getType().getBinding().

This value may be null. In this case getDescriptor().isNillable() would be true.

Returns:

The value of the property.

setValue

void setValue(Object newValue)

Sets the value or content of the property.

The class of newValue should be the same as or a subclass of getType().getBinding().

newValue may be null if getDescriptor().isNillable() is true.

Parameters:

newValue - The new value of the property.

getType

PropertyType getType()

The type of the property.

The type contains information about the value or content of the property such as its java class.

This value is also available via getDescriptor().getType().

Returns:

The property type.

getDescriptor

PropertyDescriptor getDescriptor()

The PropertyDscriptor of the property, null if this is a top-level value.

The descriptor provides information about the property with respect to its containing entity (more often then not a Feature or ComplexAttribute.

Returns:

The property descriptor, null if this is a top-level value.

See Also:

ComplexAttribute

getName

Name getName()

The name of the property with respect to its descriptor.

This method is convenience for getDescriptor().getName().

Returns:

name of the property.

isNillable

boolean isNillable()

Flag indicating if null is an acceptable value for the property.

This method is convenience for getDescriptor().isNillable().

Returns:

true if the value of the property is allowed to be null, otherwise false.

getUserData

Map<Object,Object> getUserData()

A map of "user data" which enables applications to store "application-specific" information against a property.

An example of information that may wish to be stored along with an attribute could be its srs information (in the case of a geometric attribute ).

 
  GeometryAttribute attribute = ...;

  //set the crs
  CoordinateReferenceSystem crs = CRS.decode("EPSG:4326");
  attribute.setCRS( crs );

  //set the srs
  attribute.getUserData().put( "srs", "EPSG:4326" );
 
 

Returns:

A map of user data.