com.hp.device

Interface DeviceInfo

All Superinterfaces:

FacetProvider

All Known Subinterfaces:

MutableDeviceInfo

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractDeviceInfo, DefaultDeviceInfo, DeviceInfoAdapter, KeyDeviceInfo

public interface DeviceInfo
extends FacetProvider

Collection of device attributes; both specific to a device instance and more generally of the device type. Note that the underlying device type can be refined over time as more is learned about the device.

Author:

Simon Hunt, Thomas Vachuska

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
DeviceInfo	evolve() A request to "evolve" this device info instance to reflect current information that may have been collected.
String	exportData() Exports the contents of the device info into a string form.
int	getGeneration() Get the generation number of the device info.
String	getTypeName() Returns the name of the device type backing this instance.
boolean	importData(String data) Imports the contents of the device info from the specified export-encoded string.

Methods inherited from interface com.hp.device.FacetProvider

getFacet, getFacetClasses, getFacetClassNames, isSupported

Method Detail

getTypeName

String getTypeName()

Returns the name of the device type backing this instance. This method should delegate to the context method of the same name.

Returns:

the device type name

evolve

DeviceInfo evolve()

A request to "evolve" this device info instance to reflect current information that may have been collected. Note that the returned instance is not guaranteed to be 'this' instance.

If the device info contains additional information to warrant further evolution then an altered or a different device info instance will be returned, whose generation number will be greater than the original device info generation number. Otherwise, the same device info instance may be returned with its generation number unchanged to indicate that no evolution occurred.

A recommended pattern of use is

 DeviceInfo info = ...
 int originalGeneration = info.getGeneration();
 ...
 // Attempt to evolve the underlying device type when we think more 
 // information about the underlying device may available to to 
 // further narrow the specific of the device type.
 info = info.evolve();
 
 if (originalGeneration < info.getGeneration())
     // Device info has evolved
     ...
 else
     // Device info did not evolve any further
     ...
 
 

Returns:

an evolved info instance

getGeneration

int getGeneration()

Get the generation number of the device info. It represents the number of times the device info has undergone type evolution since its original creation via one of the DeviceInfoProvider.create() methods.

Returns:

generation number of the device info

exportData

String exportData()

Exports the contents of the device info into a string form.

Returns:

string containing an export encoding of the internal data, suitable to be re-imported via importData(String)

importData

boolean importData(String data)

Imports the contents of the device info from the specified export-encoded string.

There is no mandate to be able to import data exported from a device info of a different type.

Parameters:

data - string previously encoded via exportData()

Returns:

true if the import was successful; false otherwise