001 /** 002 The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 003 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 004 You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/ 005 Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, 006 WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the 007 specific language governing rights and limitations under the License. 008 009 The Original Code is "Composite.java". Description: 010 "Represents the category of HL7 data types that contain more than one component (e.g" 011 012 The Initial Developer of the Original Code is University Health Network. Copyright (C) 013 2001. All Rights Reserved. 014 015 Contributor(s): ______________________________________. 016 017 Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the 018 GNU General Public License (the ?GPL?), in which case the provisions of the GPL are 019 applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this 020 file only under the terms of the GPL and not to allow others to use your version 021 of this file under the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above 022 and replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the GPL License. 023 If you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of 024 this file under either the MPL or the GPL. 025 026 */ 027 028 package ca.uhn.hl7v2.model; 029 030 /** 031 * <p>Represents the category of HL7 data types that contain more than one component (e.g. CE). 032 * Implementing classes (i.e. composite data types) should initialize their components 033 * either when they are initialized or when they are first accessed. Only leaf values 034 * (values of primitives) should ever be returned as null.</p> 035 * @author Bryan Tripp (bryan_tripp@sourceforge.net) 036 */ 037 public interface Composite extends Type { 038 039 /** 040 * Returns an array containing the components of this field. 041 */ 042 public Type[] getComponents(); 043 044 /** 045 * Returns the single component of this composite at the specified position (starting at 0). 046 */ 047 public Type getComponent(int number) throws DataTypeException; 048 049 }