/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2010, 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.metamodel.binding;

import java.util.Set;

import org.hibernate.metamodel.domain.Attribute;
import org.hibernate.metamodel.source.MetaAttributeContext;

The basic contract for binding a attribute from the domain model to the relational model. 
Author:
Steve Ebersole/**
 * The basic contract for binding a {@link #getAttribute() attribute} from the domain model to the relational model.
 *
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface AttributeBinding {
	
Obtain the entity binding to which this attribute binding exists.
Returns:
The entity binding./**
	 * Obtain the entity binding to which this attribute binding exists.
	 *
	 * @return The entity binding.
	 */
	public AttributeBindingContainer getContainer();

	
Obtain the attribute bound.
Returns:
The attribute./**
	 * Obtain the attribute bound.
	 *
	 * @return The attribute.
	 */
	public Attribute getAttribute();

	
Obtain the descriptor for the Hibernate Type for this binding. 
 For information about the Java type, query the Attribute obtained from getAttribute() instead. 
Returns:
The type descriptor/**
	 * Obtain the descriptor for the Hibernate {@link org.hibernate.type.Type} for this binding.
	 * <p/>
	 * For information about the Java type, query the {@link Attribute} obtained from {@link #getAttribute()}
	 * instead.
	 *
	 * @return The type descriptor
	 */
	public HibernateTypeDescriptor getHibernateTypeDescriptor();

	public boolean isAssociation();

	public boolean isBasicPropertyAccessor();

	public String getPropertyAccessorName();

	public void setPropertyAccessorName(String propertyAccessorName);

	public boolean isIncludedInOptimisticLocking();

	public void setIncludedInOptimisticLocking(boolean includedInOptimisticLocking);

	
Obtain the meta attributes associated with this binding
Returns:
The meta attributes/**
	 * Obtain the meta attributes associated with this binding
	 *
	 * @return The meta attributes
	 */
	public MetaAttributeContext getMetaAttributeContext();

	public boolean isAlternateUniqueKey();

	public boolean isLazy();

	public void addEntityReferencingAttributeBinding(SingularAssociationAttributeBinding attributeBinding);

	public Set<SingularAssociationAttributeBinding> getEntityReferencingAttributeBindings();

	public void validate();
}