net.ontopia.topicmaps.core
Interface AssociationIF

All Superinterfaces:

ReifiableIF, ScopedIF, TMObjectIF, TypedIF

All Known Implementing Classes:

Association, Association, DynamicAssociation, PhantomAssociation, ReadOnlyAssociation

public interface AssociationIF
extends ScopedIF, TypedIF, ReifiableIF

PUBLIC: Implemented by objects representing associations in the topic map model.

Note: in XTM 1.0 terminology, associations have members playing roles in the association. In ISO 13250 terminology, playing a role in an association is a characteristic of a topic. These notions are intended to be equivalent.

Method Summary

java.util.Collection<AssociationRoleIF>	getRoles() PUBLIC: Gets all the association roles of the association.
java.util.Collection<AssociationRoleIF>	getRolesByType(TopicIF roletype) PUBLIC: Gets the association roles in this association which are of the given role type.
java.util.Collection<TopicIF>	getRoleTypes() PUBLIC: Gets a Collection of association role types found in this association.

Methods inherited from interface net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.ScopedIF

addTheme, getScope, removeTheme

Methods inherited from interface net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.TypedIF

getType, setType

Methods inherited from interface net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.ReifiableIF

getReifier, setReifier

Methods inherited from interface net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.TMObjectIF

addItemIdentifier, getItemIdentifiers, getObjectId, getTopicMap, isReadOnly, remove, removeItemIdentifier

Method Detail

getRoleTypes

java.util.Collection<TopicIF> getRoleTypes()

PUBLIC: Gets a Collection of association role types found in this association. The returned collection does not contain any duplicates. Even if some roles have no type, null will not be returned as one of the role types in the returned set.

Returns:

A Collection of TopicIF objects.

getRolesByType

java.util.Collection<AssociationRoleIF> getRolesByType(TopicIF roletype)

PUBLIC: Gets the association roles in this association which are of the given role type.

Parameters:

roletype - The type of the roles returned; an object implementing TopicIF. If null the method will return the roles that have no type.

Returns:

A Collection of AssociationRoleIF objects.

getRoles

java.util.Collection<AssociationRoleIF> getRoles()

PUBLIC: Gets all the association roles of the association. The returned roles may appear in any order.

Returns:

A collection of AssociationRoleIF objects.