/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2011, 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 org.hibernate.mapping.PropertyGeneration;
import org.hibernate.metamodel.relational.Value;

Specialized binding contract for singular (non-collection) attributes
Author:
Steve Ebersole/**
 * Specialized binding contract for singular (non-collection) attributes
 *
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface SingularAttributeBinding extends AttributeBinding {
	
Obtain the value bound here. This could potentially be a Tuple indicating multiple database values are bound, in which case access to the individual values can be achieved by either casting this return to Tuple and using its Tuple.values() method or using the getSimpleValueBindings() method here and accessing each bindings simple value 
Returns:
The bound value/**
	 * Obtain the value bound here.  This could potentially be a {@link org.hibernate.metamodel.relational.Tuple}
	 * indicating multiple database values are bound, in which case access to the individual values can be achieved by
	 * either casting this return to {@link org.hibernate.metamodel.relational.Tuple} and using its
	 * {@link org.hibernate.metamodel.relational.Tuple#values()} method or using the {@link #getSimpleValueBindings()}
	 * method here and accessing each bindings {@link SimpleValueBinding#getSimpleValue simple value}
	 *
	 * @return The bound value
	 */
	public Value getValue();

	
Returns the number of SimpleValueBinding objects that will be returned by getSimpleValueBindings() 
See Also:
getSimpleValueBindings()
Returns:
the number of simple value bindings/**
	 * Returns the number of {@link SimpleValueBinding} objects that will be returned by
	 * {@link #getSimpleValueBindings()}
	 *
	 * @return the number of {@link SimpleValueBinding simple value bindings}
	 *
	 * @see #getSimpleValueBindings()
	 */
	public int getSimpleValueSpan();

	public Iterable<SimpleValueBinding> getSimpleValueBindings();

	public void setSimpleValueBindings(Iterable<SimpleValueBinding> simpleValueBindings);

	
Convenience method to determine if any simple value bindings are derived values (formula mappings). 
Returns:
true indicates that the binding contains a derived value; false indicates it does not./**
	 * Convenience method to determine if any {@link SimpleValueBinding simple value bindings} are derived values
	 * (formula mappings).
	 *
	 * @return {@code true} indicates that the binding contains a derived value; {@code false} indicates it does not.
	 */
	public boolean hasDerivedValue();

	
Convenience method to determine if all simple value bindings allow nulls. 
Returns:
true indicates that all values allow null; false indicates one or more do not/**
	 * Convenience method to determine if all {@link SimpleValueBinding simple value bindings} allow nulls.
	 *
	 * @return {@code true} indicates that all values allow {@code null}; {@code false} indicates one or more do not
	 */
	public boolean isNullable();

	
Obtain the generation strategy for this attribute/value.
Returns:
The generation strategy/**
	 * Obtain the generation strategy for this attribute/value.
	 *
	 * @return The generation strategy
	 */
	public PropertyGeneration getGeneration();
}