1 /**
2 *
3 * Copyright 2003-2006 The Apache Software Foundation
4 *
5 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
6 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
7 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
8 *
9 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
10 *
11 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
12 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
13 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
14 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
15 * limitations under the License.
16 */
17
18 package javax.mail;
19
20 import java.io.Serializable;
21
22 /**
23 * This abstract class models the addresses in a message.
24 * Addresses are Serializable so that they may be serialized along with other search terms.
25 *
26 * @version $Rev: 421852 $ $Date: 2006-07-14 03:02:19 -0700 (Fri, 14 Jul 2006) $
27 */
28 public abstract class Address implements Serializable {
29 /**
30 * Subclasses must provide a suitable implementation of equals().
31 *
32 * @param object the object to compare t
33 * @return true if the subclass determines the other object is equal to this Address
34 */
35 public abstract boolean equals(Object object);
36
37 /**
38 * Return a String that identifies this address type.
39 * @return the type of this address
40 */
41 public abstract String getType();
42
43 /**
44 * Subclasses must provide a suitable representation of their address.
45 * @return a representation of an Address as a String
46 */
47 public abstract String toString();
48 }