com.partnersoft.data
Class MagicCookie

java.lang.Object
  com.partnersoft.data.MagicCookie

public class MagicCookie
extends java.lang.Object

From the Hacker's Map/Jargon file:

    <b>magic cookie</b> [UNIX] n. 1. Something passed between routines
    or programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation;
    a capability ticket or opaque identifier. Especially used of small
    data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or intrinsically
    machine-dependent way.
    ...
    The phrase <i>it hands you a magic cookie</i> means it returns
    a result whose contents are not defined but which can be passed
    back to the same or some other program later.
 

I generally use MagicCookies as objects whose only property is their own identity; this is useful when, for instance, traversing directed acyclic (or heck, cyclic) digraphs when you need some mechanism of tracking whether this traversal has already happened at a node without actually saving a list of traversed nodes. Also use it when a data source/model is updated asynchronously to its display/viewing, but you need a quick verification of whether the source has changed.

Be sure to use the equals() function to check if two cookies match; it is currently done based on object identity but that will change if I start passing them across memory spaces for some reason.

Copyright 1997-2006 Partner Software, Inc.

Version:

$Id: MagicCookie.java 1012 2007-11-24 18:30:02Z paul $

Author:

Paul Reavis

Constructor Summary

MagicCookie()

Method Summary

boolean

equals(java.lang.Object nother)

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

MagicCookie

public MagicCookie()

Method Detail

equals

public boolean equals(java.lang.Object nother)

Overrides:

equals in class java.lang.Object