/*
 * 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.protocol.concepts;

/**
 * Marker interface for objects which are immutable. This interface should be used directly on objects, preferably
 * final, which are eligible for the JSR-305 @Immutable annotation and objects implementing this interface are required
 * to abide to interface contract specified by @Immutable. The reason for the existence of this interface is twofold:
 * unlike @Immutable, it is visible at runtime and objects can be quickly checked for compliance using a quick
 * 'instanceof' check. This is useful for code which needs to capture a point-in-time snapshot of otherwise unknown
 * objects -- a typical example being logging/tracing systems. Such systems would normally have to rely on serializing
 * the object to get a stable checkpoint. Objects marked with this interface are guaranteed to remain stable, thus
 * already being a checkpoint for all intents and purposes, so aside from retaining a reference no further action on
 * them is necessary.
 * 
 * @deprecated Use {@link org.opendaylight.yangtools.concepts.Immutable} instead
 */
@Deprecated
public interface Immutable {

}