java.security
Interface Principal

All Known Subinterfaces:

Group

All Known Implementing Classes:

Identity, KerberosPrincipal, X500Principal

public interface Principal

This interface represents the abstract notion of a principal, which can be used to represent any entity, such as an individual, a corporation, and a login id.

See Also:

X509Certificate

Method Summary

boolean	equals(Object another) Compares this principal to the specified object.
String	getName() Returns the name of this principal.
int	hashCode() Returns a hashcode for this principal.
String	toString() Returns a string representation of this principal.

Method Detail

equals

public boolean equals(Object another)

Compares this principal to the specified object. Returns true if the object passed in matches the principal represented by the implementation of this interface.

Overrides:

equals in class Object

Parameters:

another - principal to compare with.

Returns:

true if the principal passed in is the same as that encapsulated by this principal, and false otherwise.

See Also:

Object.hashCode(), Hashtable

toString

public String toString()

Returns a string representation of this principal.

Overrides:

toString in class Object

Returns:

a string representation of this principal.

hashCode

public int hashCode()

Returns a hashcode for this principal.

Overrides:

hashCode in class Object

Returns:

a hashcode for this principal.

See Also:

Object.equals(java.lang.Object), Hashtable

getName

public String getName()

Returns the name of this principal.

Returns:

the name of this principal.