001    /*
002     *  Copyright 2001-2013 Stephen Colebourne
003     *
004     *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005     *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006     *  You may obtain a copy of the License at
007     *
008     *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
009     *
010     *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011     *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012     *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013     *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014     *  limitations under the License.
015     */
016    package org.joda.beans;
017    
018    import java.util.Map;
019    
020    /**
021     * A map of properties that is linked to a specific bean.
022     * <p>
023     * For a JavaBean, this will ultimately wrap get/set method pairs.
024     * Alternate implementations may perform any logic to obtain the value.
025     * 
026     * @author Stephen Colebourne
027     */
028    public interface PropertyMap extends Map<String, Property<?>> {
029    
030        /**
031         * Flattens the contents of this property map to a {@code Map}.
032         * <p>
033         * The returned map will contain all the properties from the bean with their actual values.
034         * 
035         * @return the unmodifiable map of property name to value, not null
036         */
037        Map<String, Object> flatten();
038    
039    }