/*
 * Copyright (c) 2013 Cisco Systems, Inc. and others.  All rights reserved.
 *
 * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
 * terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 which accompanies this distribution,
 * and is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 */
package org.opendaylight.mdsal.binding.model.api;

/**
 * Interface Contact is designed to hold and model java constant. In Java there are no constant keywords instead of the
 * constant is defined as static final field with assigned value. For this purpose the Constant interface contains
 * methods {@link #getType()} to provide wrapped return Type of Constant, {@link #getName()} the Name of constant and
 * the {@link #getValue()} for providing of value assigned to Constant. To determine of which type the constant value is
 * it is recommended firstly to retrieve Type from constant. The Type interface holds base information like java package
 * name and java type name (e.g. fully qualified name). From this string user should be able to determine to which type
 * can be {@link #getValue()} type typecasted to unbox and provide value assigned to constant.
 */
public interface Constant {
    /**
     * Returns the return Type (or just Type) of the Constant.
     *
     * @return the return Type (or just Type) of the Constant.
     */
    Type getType();

    /**
     * Returns the name of constant. <br>
     * By conventions the name SHOULD be in CAPITALS separated with underscores.
     *
     * @return the name of constant.
     */
    String getName();

    /**
     * Returns boxed value that is assigned for context.
     *
     * @return boxed value that is assigned for context.
     */
    Object getValue();
}