java.security.acl

Interface Group

  • All Superinterfaces:
    Principal 

    public interface Group
extends Principal
    This interface is used to represent a group of principals. (A principal represents an entity such as an individual user or a company).

    Note that Group extends Principal. Thus, either a Principal or a Group can be passed as an argument to methods containing a Principal parameter. For example, you can add either a Principal or a Group to a Group object by calling the object's addMember method, passing it the Principal or Group.

    • Method Detail

      • addMember

        boolean addMember(Principal user)
        Adds the specified member to the group.
        Parameters:
        user - the principal to add to this group.
        Returns:
        true if the member was successfully added, false if the principal was already a member.

      • removeMember

        boolean removeMember(Principal user)
        Removes the specified member from the group.
        Parameters:
        user - the principal to remove from this group.
        Returns:
        true if the principal was removed, or false if the principal was not a member.

      • isMember

        boolean isMember(Principal member)
        Returns true if the passed principal is a member of the group. This method does a recursive search, so if a principal belongs to a group which is a member of this group, true is returned.
        Parameters:
        member - the principal whose membership is to be checked.
        Returns:
        true if the principal is a member of this group, false otherwise.

      • members

        Enumeration<? extends Principal> members()
        Returns an enumeration of the members in the group. The returned objects can be instances of either Principal or Group (which is a subclass of Principal).
        Returns:
        an enumeration of the group members.