How This API Document Is Organized

This API (Application Programming Interface) document has pages corresponding to the items in the navigation bar, described as follows.

Overview

The Overview page is the front page of this API document and provides a list of all packages with a summary for each. This page can also contain an overall description of the set of packages.

Package

Each package has a page that contains a list of its classes and interfaces, with a summary for each. This page can contain four categories:

• Interfaces (italic)
• Classes
• Exceptions
• Errors

Class/Interface

Each class, interface, inner class and inner interface has its own separate page. Each of these pages has three sections consisting of a class/interface description, summary tables, and detailed member descriptions:

• Class inheritance diagram
• Direct Subclasses
• All Known Subinterfaces
• All Known Implementing Classes
• Class/interface declaration
• Class/interface description

• Inner Class Summary
• Field Summary
• Constructor Summary
• Method Summary

• Field Detail
• Constructor Detail
• Method Detail

Each summary entry contains the first sentence from the detailed description for that item. The summary entries are alphabetical, while the detailed descriptions are in the order they appear in the source code. This preserves the logical groupings established by the programmer.

Use

Each documented package, class and interface has its own Use page. This page describes what packages, classes, methods, constructors and fields use any part of the given class or package. Given a class or interface A, its Use page includes subclasses of A, fields declared as A, methods that return A, and methods and constructors with parameters of type A. You can access this page by first going to the package, class or interface, then clicking on the "Use" link in the navigation bar.

Tree (Class Hierarchy)

There is a Class Hierarchy page for all packages, plus a hierarchy for each package. Each hierarchy page contains a list of classes and a list of interfaces. The classes are organized by inheritance structure starting with java.lang.Object. The interfaces do not inherit from java.lang.Object.

• When viewing the Overview page, clicking on "Tree" displays the hierarchy for all packages.
• When viewing a particular package, class or interface page, clicking "Tree" displays the hierarchy for only that package.

Deprecated API

The Deprecated API page lists all of the API that have been deprecated. A deprecated API is not recommended for use, generally due to improvements, and a replacement API is usually given. Deprecated APIs may be removed in future implementations.

Hooks

The Hooks page contains a documentation of HotSpots and Hooks. HotSpots and Hooks describe places in which adaptations can be made to a Framework of classes in order to build specialized applications. HotSpots are larger areas of change that group together logically Hooks that deal with similar problems. Every Hook can be viewed as a recipe for a single change that has a restricted aim. Hooks consist of the following main sections: Name, Requirement giving a short description of the problem the hook tries to solve, Type see below, Uses naming other Hooks that might be necessary to achieve the goal of this Hook, Participant naming classes, interfaces, attributes, methods and objects that participate in the Hook, Changes listing the individual steps that must be followed to implement the Hook, Constraints listing constraints that the Hook brings up, like which Hooks you cannot use with the Hook,and Comments giving further explanations about aim and intent of the Hook.

The type of a Hook is defined along two axis, type of adaptation and level of support. While type of adaptation is comparatively self-explanatory, level of support will need some explanations. There are basically three levels of support: option, where adaptation happens by choosing between pre-made options, parameter pattern where adaptation happens by supplying parameters,which can be as complex as methods or subclasses of existing classes and open ended where practically no support is given by the Framework.

The changes section lists the steps necessary to implement the hook in the order in which they need to be executed. The steps can build a hierarchy with the inner levels usually representing steps for a methods body or steps that need to be executed repeatedly. The individual steps are given in a slightly formalized English. One construction might need explanation: synchronisation (A, B) with A and B being method names means that B must be executed after A was executed or (most often) at the end of A.

Index

The Index contains an alphabetic list of all classes, interfaces, constructors, methods, and fields.

Prev/Next

These links take you to the next or previous class, interface, package, or related page.

Frames/No Frames

These links show and hide the HTML frames. All pages are available with or without frames.

Serialized Form

Each serializable or externalizable class has a description of its serialization fields and methods. This information is of interest to re-implementors, not to developers using the API. While there is no link in the navigation bar, you can get to this information by going to any serialized class and clicking "Serialized Form" in the "See also" section of the class description.

This help file applies to API documentation generated using the standard doclet.