/*
 * @(#)ValueExp.java	4.23 05/11/17
 * 
 * Copyright 2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * SUN PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL. Use is subject to license terms.
 */

package javax.management;


/**
 * Represents values that can be passed as arguments to
 * relational expressions. Strings, numbers, attributes are valid values
 * and should be represented by implementations of <CODE>ValueExp</CODE>.
 *
 * @since 1.5
 */
/*
  We considered generifying this interface as ValueExp<T>, where T is
  the Java type that this expression generates.  This allows some additional
  checking in the various methods of the Query class, but in practice
  not much.  Typically you have something like
  Query.lt(Query.attr("A"), Query.value(5)).  We can arrange for Query.value
  to have type ValueExp<Integer> (or maybe ValueExp<Long> or ValueExp<Number>)
  but for Query.attr we can't do better than ValueExp<?> or plain ValueExp.
  So even though we could define Query.lt as:
  QueryExp <T> lt(ValueExp<T> v1, ValueExp<T> v2)
  and thus prevent comparing a
  number against a string, in practice the first ValueExp will almost always
  be a Query.attr so this check serves no purpose.  You would have to
  write Query.<Number>attr("A"), for example, which would be awful.  And,
  if you wrote Query.<Integer>attr("A") you would then discover that you
  couldn't compare it against Query.value(5) if the latter is defined as
  ValueExp<Number>, or against Query.value(5L) if it is defined as
  ValueExp<Integer>.

  Worse, for Query.in we would like to define:
  QueryExp <T> in(ValueExp<T> val, ValueExp<T>[] valueList)
  but this is unusable because you cannot write
  "new ValueExp<Integer>[] {...}" (the compiler forbids it).

  The few mistakes you might catch with this generification certainly
  wouldn't justify the hassle of modifying user code to get the checks
  to be made and the "unchecked" warnings that would arise if it
  wasn't so modified.

  We could reconsider this if the Query methods were augmented, for example
  with:
  AttributeValueExp<Number> numberAttr(String name);
  AttributeValueExp<String> stringAttr(String name);
  AttributeValueExp<Boolean> booleanAttr(String name);
  QueryExp <T> in(ValueExp<T> val, Set<ValueExp<T>> valueSet).
  But it's not really clear what numberAttr should do if it finds that the
  attribute is not in fact a Number.
 */
public interface ValueExp extends java.io.Serializable { 

    /**
     * Applies the ValueExp on a MBean.
     *
     * @param name The name of the MBean on which the ValueExp will be applied.
     *
     * @return  The <CODE>ValueExp</CODE>.
     *
     * @exception BadStringOperationException
     * @exception BadBinaryOpValueExpException
     * @exception BadAttributeValueExpException 
     * @exception InvalidApplicationException
     */   
    public ValueExp apply(ObjectName name)
	    throws BadStringOperationException, BadBinaryOpValueExpException,
		   BadAttributeValueExpException, InvalidApplicationException;

    /**
     * Sets the MBean server on which the query is to be performed.
     *
     * @param s The MBean server on which the query is to be performed.
     *
     * @deprecated This method is not needed because a
     * <code>ValueExp</code> can access the MBean server in which it
     * is being evaluated by using {@link QueryEval#getMBeanServer()}.
     */
@Deprecated
    public  void setMBeanServer(MBeanServer s) ;
}