/*
*
*
* Copyright 1990-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version
* 2 only, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
* WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
* General Public License version 2 for more details (a copy is
* included at /legal/license.txt).
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* version 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
* 02110-1301 USA
*
* Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa
* Clara, CA 95054 or visit www.sun.com if you need additional
* information or have any questions.
*/
package java.security;
/**
* The Key interface is the top-level interface for all keys. It
* defines the functionality shared by all key objects. All keys
* have three characteristics:
*
* <UL>
*
* <LI>An Algorithm
*
* <P>This is the key algorithm for that key. The key algorithm is usually
* an encryption or asymmetric operation algorithm (such as DSA or
* RSA), which will work with those algorithms and with related
* algorithms (such as MD5 with RSA, SHA-1 with RSA, Raw DSA, etc.)
*
* <LI>An Encoded Form
*
* <P>This is an external encoded form for the key used when a standard
* representation of the key is needed outside the Java Virtual Machine,
* as when transmitting the key to some other party. The key
* is encoded according to a standard format (such as
* X.509 <code>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</code>).
* Note: The syntax of the ASN.1 type <code>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</code>
* is defined as follows:
*
* <pre>
* SubjectPublicKeyInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
* algorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
* subjectPublicKey BIT STRING }
*
* AlgorithmIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
* algorithm OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
* parameters ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL }
* </pre>
*
* For more information, see
* <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2459.txt">RFC 2459:
* Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile</a>.
* <P>
*
* <LI>A Format
*
* <P>This is the name of the format of the encoded key.
*
* </UL>
*
* Keys are generally obtained through key generators and certificates.
* Keys may also be obtained from key specifications (transparent
* representations of the underlying key material) through the use of a key
* factory.
*
*/
public interface Key {
/**
* Returns the standard algorithm name for this key.
* For example, "DSA" would indicate that this key is a DSA key.
* See Appendix A in the Java Cryptography Architecture API
* Specification & Reference for information about standard algorithm names
*
* @return the name of the algorithm associated with this key.
*/
public String getAlgorithm();
/**
* Returns the name of the primary encoding format of this key, or null
* if this key does not support encoding. The primary encoding format is
* named in terms of the appropriate ASN.1 data format, if an ASN.1
* specification for this key exists. For example, the name of the ASN.1
* data format for public keys is <I>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</I>, as defined by
* the X.509 standard; in this case, the returned format is
* <code>"X.509"</code>.
* Similarly, the name of the ASN.1 data format for private keys is
* <I>PrivateKeyInfo</I>, as defined by the PKCS #8 standard; in this case,
* the returned format is <code>"PKCS#8"</code>.
*
* @return the primary encoding format of the key.
*/
public String getFormat();
/**
* Returns the key in its primary encoding format, or null
* if this key does not support encoding.
*
* @return the encoded key, or null if the key does not support encoding.
*/
public byte[] getEncoded();
}