001/* ValueBase.java --
002   Copyright (C) 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
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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
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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
038
039package org.omg.CORBA.portable;
040
041
042/**
043 * ValueBase is the basic interface for all CORBA value data types. A value
044 * type is something between CORBA structure and CORBA object. Like CORBA
045 * object, it can have methods, supporting some IDL-defined interface.
046 * However, like structures, they are local and passed by value,
047 * not by IOR reference.
048 *
049 * Unlike CORBA objects, values are not connected to any ORB by
050 * default; they hanlde the implemented functionality locally. The classes,
051 * required to implement that functionality, should either be pre-defined
052 * or they can be downloaded from the certain URL, defined as CodeBase.
053 *
054 * The value types can have both public and private members. They support
055 * inheritance. Value types can also be abstract.
056 *
057 * For transferring the value type data via stream, it must implement either
058 * {@link CustomValue} or {@link StreamableValue}.
059 *
060 * @since 1.3
061 *
062 * @author Audrius Meskauskas, Lithuania (AudriusA@Bioinformatics.org)
063 */
064public interface ValueBase
065  extends IDLEntity
066{
067  /**
068   * Get the truncatable repository ids.
069   *
070   * @return the array of repository ids, defining the base types, to that
071   * basic types this value base can be truncated.
072   */
073  String[] _truncatable_ids();
074}