/* Object.java --
   Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
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making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
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permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
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package org.omg.CORBA;

/**
 * The CORBA object reference. The object can be either local or remote.
 * For the local object, the methods of the derived object are called
 * like on any other java object. For the remote object, the reference
 * points to the stup (proxy), responsible for the remote invocation.
 *
 * @author Audrius Meskauskas (AudriusA@Bioinformatics.org)
 */
public interface Object
{
  /**
   * Create a request to invoke the method of this object.
   *
   * @param context a list of additional properties.
   * @param operation the name of method to be invoked.
   * @param parameters the method parameters.
   * @param returns the container for tge method returned value.
   *
   * @return the created reaquest.
   */
  Request _create_request(Context context, String operation, NVList parameters,
                          NamedValue returns
                         );

  /**
   * Create a request to invoke the method of this object, specifying
   * context list and the list of the expected exception.
   *
   * @param context a list of additional properties.
   * @param operation the name of method to be invoked.
   * @param parameters the method parameters.
   * @param returns the container for tge method returned value.
   * @param exceptions the list of the possible exceptions that the method
   * can throw.
   * @param ctx_list the list of the context strings that need to be
   * resolved and send as a context instance.
   *
   * @return the created reaquest.
   */
  Request _create_request(Context context, String operation, NVList parameters,
                          NamedValue returns, ExceptionList exceptions,
                          ContextList ctx_list
                         );

  /**
   * Duplicate the object reference. This does not make much sense for
   * java platform and is just included for the sake of compliance with
   * CORBA APIs.
   *
   * The method may return the object reference itself.
   *
   * @return as a rule, <code>this</code>.
   */
  org.omg.CORBA.Object _duplicate();

  /**
   * Retrieve the domain managers for this object.
   *
   * @return the domain managers.
   */
  DomainManager[] _get_domain_managers();

  /**
   * Get the <code>InterfaceDef</code> for this Object.
   */
  org.omg.CORBA.Object _get_interface_def();

  /**
   * Returns the {@link Policy}, applying to this object.
   *
   * @param a_policy_type a type of policy to be obtained.
   * @return a corresponding Policy object.
   *
   * @throws BAD_PARAM if the policy of the given type is not
   * associated with this object, or if it is not supported by this ORB.
   */
  Policy _get_policy(int a_policy_type)
              throws BAD_PARAM;

  /**
   * Get the hashcode this object reference. The same hashcode still
   * does not means that the references are the same. From the other
   * side, two different references may still refer to the same CORBA
   * object. The returned value must not change during the object
   * lifetime.
   *
   * @param maximum the maximal value to return.
   *
   * @return the hashcode.
   */
  int _hash(int maximum);

  /**
   * Check if this object can be referenced by the given repository id.
   *
   * @param repositoryIdentifer the repository id.
   *
   * @return true if the passed parameter is a repository id of this
   * CORBA object.
   */
  boolean _is_a(String repositoryIdentifer);

  /**
   * Return true if the other object references are equivalent, so far as
   * it is possible to determine this easily.
   *
   * @param other the other object reference.
   *
   * @return true if both references refer the same object, false
   * if they probably can refer different objects.
   */
  boolean _is_equivalent(org.omg.CORBA.Object other);

  /**
   * Determines if the server object for this reference has already
   * been destroyed.
   *
   * @return true if the object has been destroyed, false otherwise.
   */
  boolean _non_existent();

  /**
   * Free resoureces, occupied by this reference. The object implementation
   * is not notified, and the other references to the same object are not
   * affected.
   */
  void _release();

  /**
   * Create a request to invoke the method of this CORBA object.
   *
   * @param operation the name of the method to invoke.
   *
   * @return the request.
   */
  Request _request(String operation);

  /**
   * Returns a new object with the new policies either replacing or
   * extending the current policies, depending on the second parameter.
   *
   * @param policies the policy additions or replacements.
   *
   * @param how either {@link SetOverrideType#SET_OVERRIDE} to override the
   * current policies of {@link SetOverrideType#ADD_OVERRIDE} to replace
   * them.
   *
   * @return the new reference with the changed policies.
   */
  Object _set_policy_override(Policy[] policies, SetOverrideType how);
}