/*
 * 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.  Sun designates this
 * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
 * by Sun 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 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara,
 * CA 95054 USA or visit www.sun.com if you need additional information or
 * have any questions.
 */

/*
 * Copyright (c) 2003 by BEA Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 */

package javax.xml.stream.events;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;

/**
 * An interface that contains information about an attribute.  Attributes are reported 
 * as a set of events accessible from a StartElement.  Other applications may report
 * Attributes as first-order events, for example as the results of an XPath expression.
 *
 * @version 1.0
 * @author Copyright (c) 2003 by BEA Systems. All Rights Reserved.
 * @see StartElement
 * @since 1.6
 */
public interface Attribute extends XMLEvent {
  
  /**
   * Returns the QName for this attribute
   */
  QName getName();

  /**
   * Gets the normalized value of this attribute
   */
  public String getValue();

  /**
   * Gets the type of this attribute, default is 
   * the String "CDATA"
   * @return the type as a String, default is "CDATA"
   */
  public String getDTDType();

  /**
   * A flag indicating whether this attribute was actually 
   * specified in the start-tag of its element, or was defaulted from the schema. 
   * @return returns true if this was specified in the start element
   */
  public boolean isSpecified();

}