/*
 * Copyright (c) 1998, 2019 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 *
 * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
 * terms of the Eclipse Public License v. 2.0 which is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-2.0,
 * or the Eclipse Distribution License v. 1.0 which is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/edl-v10.php.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: EPL-2.0 OR BSD-3-Clause
 */

// Contributors:
//     Oracle - initial API and implementation from Oracle TopLink
package org.eclipse.persistence.sessions.changesets;


/**
 * <p>
 * <b>Purpose</b>: Define the base Change Record API.
 * <p>
 * <b>Description</b>: This interface is meant to clarify the public protocol into TopLink.
 * It provides access into the information available from the TopLink Change Set
 * <p>
 * <b>Responsibilities</b>:
 * <ul>
 * <li> Define the API for ChangeRecord.
 * </ul>
 */
public interface ChangeRecord {

    /**
     * ADVANCED:
     * Returns the name of the attribute this ChangeRecord Represents
     * @return java.lang.String
     */
    String getAttribute();

    /**
     * ADVANCED:
     * This method returns the ObjectChangeSet that references this ChangeRecord
     * @return org.eclipse.persistence.sessions.changesets.ObjectChangeSet
     */
    ObjectChangeSet getOwner();

    /**
     * ADVANCED:
     * If the owning UnitOfWork has shouldChangeRecordKeepOldValue set to true,
     * then return the old value of the attribute represented by this ChangeRecord.
     */
    Object getOldValue();
}