/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2013, Red Hat Inc. or third-party contributors as
 * indicated by the @author tags or express copyright attribution
 * statements applied by the authors.  All third-party contributions are
 * distributed under license by Red Hat Inc.
 *
 * This copyrighted material is made available to anyone wishing to use, modify,
 * copy, or redistribute it subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
 * or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this distribution; if not, write to:
 * Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 * 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
 * Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
 */
package org.hibernate.loader.plan.spi;

import org.hibernate.persister.entity.EntityPersister;

Represents a reference to an entity either as a return, fetch, or collection element or index.
Author:
Steve Ebersole/**
 * Represents a reference to an entity either as a return, fetch, or collection element or index.
 *
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface EntityReference extends FetchSource {

	
Obtain the UID of the QuerySpace (specifically a EntityQuerySpace) that this EntityReference refers to. 
Returns:
The UID/**
	 * Obtain the UID of the QuerySpace (specifically a {@link EntityQuerySpace}) that this EntityReference
	 * refers to.
	 *
	 * @return The UID
	 */
	public String getQuerySpaceUid();

	
Retrieves the EntityPersister describing the entity associated with this Return.
Returns:
The EntityPersister./**
	 * Retrieves the EntityPersister describing the entity associated with this Return.
	 *
	 * @return The EntityPersister.
	 */
	public EntityPersister getEntityPersister();

	
Get the description of this entity's identifier descriptor.
Returns:
The identifier description./**
	 * Get the description of this entity's identifier descriptor.
	 *
	 * @return The identifier description.
	 */
	public EntityIdentifierDescription getIdentifierDescription();
}