001/* 002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one 003 * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file 004 * distributed with this work for additional information 005 * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file 006 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the 007 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance 008 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at 009 * 010 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 011 * 012 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, 013 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an 014 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY 015 * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the 016 * specific language governing permissions and limitations 017 * under the License. 018 * 019 */ 020package org.apache.directory.api.ldap.model.filter; 021 022 023import javax.naming.NamingException; 024 025import org.apache.directory.api.ldap.model.entry.Entry; 026 027 028/** 029 * A candidacy predicate which tests if an entry satisfies some condition before 030 * being returned by a search. 031 * 032 * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a> 033 */ 034public interface Assertion extends Cloneable 035{ 036 /** 037 * Checks to see if a candidate is valid by asserting an arbitrary predicate 038 * against the candidate. Where available entry will be provided 039 * however there is no guarantee. The entry's attributes are only provided 040 * if they were previously accessed. All assertions should handle cases 041 * where the entry argument is null. 042 * 043 * @param entry the entry if available 044 * @return true if the candidate satisfies the predicate, false otherwise 045 * @throws NamingException if an error occurs while asserting the predicate 046 */ 047 boolean assertCandidate( Entry entry ) throws NamingException; 048}