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.message;
021
022
023/**
024 * Protocol request and response altering control interface. Any number of
025 * controls may be associated with a protocol message. Each control may be
026 * associated with a Request, a response, or both.
027 * 
028 * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
029 */
030public interface Control
031{
032    /**
033     * @return The Control's OID
034     */
035    String getOid();
036
037
038    /**
039     * Tells if the control is critical or not.
040     *
041     * @return <code>true</code> if the control is critical, <code>false</code> otherwise 
042     */
043    boolean isCritical();
044
045
046    /**
047     * Sets the critical flag which determines whether or not this control is
048     * critical for the correct operation of a request or response message. The
049     * default for this value should be false.
050     * 
051     * @param isCritical true if the control is critical false otherwise.
052     */
053    void setCritical( boolean isCritical );
054}