/*
* Copyright (c) 1998, 2001, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
* This code 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. Oracle designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code 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 in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* 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 Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
* or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any
* questions.
*/
package com.sun.jdi;
/**
* A proxy used by a debugger to examine or manipulate some entity
* in another virtual machine. Mirror is the root of the
* interface hierarchy for this package. Mirrors can be proxies for objects
* in the target VM ({@link ObjectReference}), primitive values
* (for example, {@link IntegerValue}), types (for example,
* {@link ReferenceType}), dynamic application state (for example,
* {@link StackFrame}), and even debugger-specific constructs (for example,
* {@link com.sun.jdi.request.BreakpointRequest}).
* The {@link VirtualMachine} itself is also
* considered a mirror, representing the composite state of the
* target VM.
* <P>
* There is no guarantee that a particular entity in the target VM will map
* to a single instance of Mirror. Implementors are free to decide
* whether a single mirror will be used for some or all mirrors. Clients
* of this interface should always use <code>equals</code> to compare
* two mirrors for equality.
* <p>
* Any method on a {@link com.sun.jdi.Mirror} that takes a <code>Mirror</code> as an
* parameter directly or indirectly (e.g., as a element in a <code>List</code>) will
* throw {@link com.sun.jdi.VMMismatchException} if the mirrors are from different
* virtual machines.
*
* @see VirtualMachine
*
* @author Robert Field
* @author Gordon Hirsch
* @author James McIlree
* @since 1.3
*/
public interface Mirror {
/**
* Gets the VirtualMachine to which this
* Mirror belongs. A Mirror must be associated
* with a VirtualMachine to have any meaning.
*
* @return the {@link VirtualMachine} for which this mirror is a proxy.
*/
VirtualMachine virtualMachine();
/**
* Returns a String describing this mirror
*
* @return a string describing this mirror.
*/
String toString();
}