com.jcorporate.expresso.kernel
Interface Containable

All Superinterfaces:

ExpressoComponent, Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

RootContainerInterface

All Known Implementing Classes:

ContainerComponentBase, RootContainer

public interface Containable

extends ExpressoComponent

Containable is partially 'marker interface' much like java.lang.Serialiable. If a class implements Containable then the Expresso Runtime wraps it with a ComponentContainer interface. This way the Container implementation is fully pluggable without any of the components knowing about the implementation of their containers.

You use get/setContainerImplementation to get the container implementation that then allows you to navigate the heirarchy of components and component containers.

Since:

Expresso 5.1

Version:

$Revision: 1.4 $ on $Date: 2003/05/17 05:45:29 $

Author:

Michael Rimov

Method Summary

ComponentContainer	getContainerImplementation() Retrieves the actual container implementation
ExpressoComponent	locateComponent(String componentName) Convenience method for Container clients.
void	setContainerImplementation(ComponentContainer newContainer) Sets the marker to the ComponentContainer (which has a 1:1 instance mapping with Containable).

Methods inherited from interface com.jcorporate.expresso.kernel.ExpressoComponent

getMetaData, getParent, setParent

Method Detail

setContainerImplementation

public void setContainerImplementation(ComponentContainer newContainer)

Sets the marker to the ComponentContainer (which has a 1:1 instance mapping with Containable). This is often called by the actual implementation of the ComponentContainer.

Parameters:

newContainer - a ComponentCo

getContainerImplementation

public ComponentContainer getContainerImplementation()

Retrieves the actual container implementation

Returns:

ComponentContainer

locateComponent

public ExpressoComponent locateComponent(String componentName)

Convenience method for Container clients. Recommended Implementation:

ExpressoComponent getComponent(String componentName) {
return this.getContainerImplementation().getComponent(componentName); }


Typical usage from an ExpressoComponent.

This example gets the default Data Context for a component within the context

DataContext default = (DataContext)this.getParent().locateComponent("default");

Parameters:

componentName - The name of the component to retrieve

Returns:

an ExpressoComponent or null if the specified name doesn't exist