1 /*
2 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
3 * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
4 * distributed with this work for additional information
5 * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
6 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
7 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
8 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
9 *
10 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
11 *
12 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
13 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
14 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
15 * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
16 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
17 * under the License.
18 */
19 package org.apache.shiro.authc;
20
21 /**
22 * <p>An extension of the {@link AuthenticationInfo} interface to be implemented by
23 * classes that support merging with other {@link AuthenticationInfo} instances.</p>
24 *
25 * <p>This allows an instance of this class to be an <em>aggregation</em>, or <em>composition</em> of account data
26 * from across multiple <code>Realm</code>s <tt>Realm</tt>s, not just one realm.</p>
27 *
28 * <p>This is useful in a multi-realm authentication configuration - the individual <tt>AuthenticationInfo</tt>
29 * objects obtained from each realm can be {@link #merge merged} into a single instance. This instance can then be
30 * returned at the end of the authentication process, giving the impression of a single underlying
31 * realm/data source.
32 *
33 * @since 0.9
34 */
35 public interface MergableAuthenticationInfo extends AuthenticationInfo {
36
37 /**
38 * Merges the given {@link AuthenticationInfo} into this instance. The specific way
39 * that the merge occurs is up to the implementation, but typically it involves combining
40 * the principals and credentials together in this instance. The <code>info</code> argument should
41 * not be modified in any way.
42 *
43 * @param info the info that should be merged into this instance.
44 */
45 void merge(AuthenticationInfo info);
46
47 }