/*
 * 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.jpa.criteria;

import javax.persistence.criteria.Path;
import javax.persistence.metamodel.Attribute;

Implementation contract for the JPA Path interface. 
Author:
Steve Ebersole/**
 * Implementation contract for the JPA {@link Path} interface.
 *
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface PathImplementor<X> extends ExpressionImplementor<X>, Path<X>, PathSource<X>, Renderable {
	
Retrieve reference to the attribute this path represents.
Returns:
The metamodel attribute./**
	 * Retrieve reference to the attribute this path represents.
	 *
	 * @return The metamodel attribute.
	 */
	public Attribute<?, ?> getAttribute();

	
Defines handling for the JPA 2.1 TREAT down-casting feature.
Params:
treatAsType – The type to treat the path as.
Type parameters:
<T> – The parameterized type representation of treatAsType.
Returns:
The properly typed view of this path./**
	 * Defines handling for the JPA 2.1 TREAT down-casting feature.
	 *
	 * @param treatAsType The type to treat the path as.
	 * @param <T> The parameterized type representation of treatAsType.
	 *
	 * @return The properly typed view of this path.
	 */
	public <T extends X> PathImplementor<T> treatAs(Class<T> treatAsType);
}