Package com.google.common.collect

Interface Constraint<E>

@Beta
@Deprecated
@GwtCompatible
public interface Constraint<E>

Deprecated.

Use Preconditions for basic checks. In place of constrained collections, we encourage you to check your preconditions explicitly instead of leaving that work to the collection implementation. For the specific case of rejecting null, consider the immutable collections. This interface is scheduled for removal in Guava 16.0.

A constraint that an element must satisfy in order to be added to a collection. For example, Constraints.notNull(), which prevents a collection from including any null elements, could be implemented like this:

   

   public Object checkElement(Object element) {
     if (element == null) {
       throw new NullPointerException();
     }
     return element;
   }

In order to be effective, constraints should be deterministic; that is, they should not depend on state that can change (such as external state, random variables, and time) and should only depend on the value of the passed-in element. A non-deterministic constraint cannot reliably enforce that all the collection's elements meet the constraint, since the constraint is only enforced when elements are added.

Since:

3.0

See Also:

Constraints, MapConstraint

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
E	checkElement(E element)	Deprecated. Throws a suitable RuntimeException if the specified element is illegal.
java.lang.String	toString()	Deprecated. Returns a brief human readable description of this constraint, such as "Not null" or "Positive number".

Method Detail

checkElement

E checkElement(E element)

Deprecated.

Throws a suitable RuntimeException if the specified element is illegal. Typically this is either a NullPointerException, an IllegalArgumentException, or a ClassCastException, though an application-specific exception class may be used if appropriate.

Parameters:

element - the element to check

Returns:

the provided element

toString

java.lang.String toString()

Deprecated.

Returns a brief human readable description of this constraint, such as "Not null" or "Positive number".

Overrides:

toString in class java.lang.Object