org.jacorb.notification.util

Interface WildcardMap

All Known Implementing Classes:

CachingWildcardMap, DefaultWildcardMap, WeakCacheWildcardMap

public interface WildcardMap

An Object that maps String Keys to Values.
A WildcardMap cannot contain duplicate keys. Each Key has exactly one Entry associated. A Key can contain the Wildcard Character '*' which matches zero or more characters. The WildcardMap supports two semantics of accessing the entries. The first way is to ignore the special meaning of the Wildcard character and to just return the entries as they were inserted.
This way you could put some entries in a WildcardMap and fetch them again using the Operation getNoExpansion():

 
   WildcardMap wc = new WildcardMap();
   wc.put("abc", new Integer(1));
   wc.put("a*", new Integer(2));
   wc.getNoExpansion("abc") => 1
   wc.getNoExpansion("a*") => 2
   wc.getNoExpansion("xyz") => null
 

This behaviour is similiar to a Map.
The other way using the WildcardMap is to use the Operation getWithExpansion(). This Operations matches the requested Key to all contained Keys. If the Key of an Entry contains the Wildcard Character '*' it is matched as expected by the semantic of '*'. The Operations returns an array of all matching entries:

   wc.getWithExpansion("abc") => [1,2]
   wc.getWithExpansion("a") => [2]
   wc.getWithExpansion("abcd") => [2]
   wc.getWithExpansion("xyz") => []
 

Author:

Alphonse Bendt

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	clear() clear this map
Object	getNoExpansion(Object key) Returns the value to which this map maps the specified key.
Object[]	getWithExpansion(Object key) Returns the value to which this map maps the specified key.
Object	put(Object key, Object value) The operation put associates the specified value with the specified key in this map.
Object	remove(Object key) remove the specified key from this Map.

Method Detail

clear

void clear()

clear this map

remove

Object remove(Object key)

remove the specified key from this Map.

put

Object put(Object key,
         Object value)

The operation put associates the specified value with the specified key in this map. The String representation of the Key toString() is used. If the map previously contained a mapping for this key, the old value is replaced by the specified value.

Parameters:

key - key with which String representation the specified value is to be associated.

value - value to be associated with the specified key.

Returns:

previous value associated with specified key, or null if there was no mapping for key.

getNoExpansion

Object getNoExpansion(Object key)

Returns the value to which this map maps the specified key. Returns null if the map contains no mapping for this key.

Parameters:

key - key whose associated value is to be returned

Returns:

the value to which this map maps the specified key, or null if the map contains no mapping for this key.

getWithExpansion

Object[] getWithExpansion(Object key)

Returns the value to which this map maps the specified key. Additionaly return all Values which keys contain a Wildcard and match the requested key. Returns null if the map contains no mapping for this key.

Parameters:

key - key whose associated value is to be returned

Returns:

an Array of all Matching entries or null if no matching entry could be found.