001/* Key.java -- A abstract representation of a digital key 002 Copyright (C) 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 003 004This file is part of GNU Classpath. 005 006GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 007it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by 008the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) 009any later version. 010 011GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 012WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 013MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU 014General Public License for more details. 015 016You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 017along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the 018Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 01902110-1301 USA. 020 021Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is 022making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and 023conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole 024combination. 025 026As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you 027permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an 028executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent 029modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under 030terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked 031independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that 032module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from 033or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend 034this exception to your version of the library, but you are not 035obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this 036exception statement from your version. */ 037 038package java.security; 039 040import java.io.Serializable; 041 042/** 043 * This interfaces models the base characteristics that all keys must 044 * have. These are: a key algorithm, an encoded form, and a format used 045 * to encode the key. Specific key types inherit from this interface. 046 * Note that since this interface extends <code>Serializable</code>, all 047 * keys may be serialized. Keys are generally obtained through key generators, 048 * including {@link KeyFactory}. 049 * 050 * @author Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) 051 * @see PublicKey 052 * @see PrivateKey 053 * @see KeyPair 054 * @see KeyPairGenerator 055 * @see KeyFactory 056 * @see KeySpec 057 * @see Identity 058 * @see Signer 059 * @since 1.1 060 * @status updated to 1.4 061 */ 062public interface Key extends Serializable 063{ 064 /** 065 * The version identifier used for serialization. 066 */ 067 long serialVersionUID = 6603384152749567654L; 068 069 /** 070 * This method returns the name of the algorithm for this key. This is a 071 * <code>String</code> such as "RSA". 072 * 073 * @return the name of the algorithm in use 074 */ 075 String getAlgorithm(); 076 077 /** 078 * This method returns the name of the encoding format for this key. This 079 * is the name of the ASN.1 data format used for this key, such as 080 * "X.509" or "PKCS#8". This method returns <code>null</code> if this key 081 * does not have an encoding format. 082 * 083 * @return the name of the encoding format for this key, or null 084 */ 085 String getFormat(); 086 087 /** 088 * This method returns the encoded form of the key. If this key does not 089 * support encoding, this method returns <code>null</code>. 090 * 091 * @return the encoded form of the key, or null 092 */ 093 byte[] getEncoded(); 094} // interface Key