/*
 * Copyright 1997-2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  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.  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.
 */

package javax.crypto;

/**
 * A secret (symmetric) key.
 *
 * <p>This interface contains no methods or constants.
 * Its only purpose is to group (and provide type safety for) secret keys.
 *
 * <p>Provider implementations of this interface must overwrite the
 * <code>equals</code> and <code>hashCode</code> methods inherited from
 * <code>java.lang.Object</code>, so that secret keys are compared based on
 * their underlying key material and not based on reference.
 *
 * <p>Keys that implement this interface return the string <code>RAW</code>
 * as their encoding format (see <code>getFormat</code>), and return the
 * raw key bytes as the result of a <code>getEncoded</code> method call. (The
 * <code>getFormat</code> and <code>getEncoded</code> methods are inherited
 * from the <code>java.security.Key</code> parent interface.)
 *
 * @author Jan Luehe
 *
 * @see SecretKeyFactory
 * @see Cipher
 * @since 1.4
 */

public interface SecretKey extends java.security.Key {
    /**
     * The class fingerprint that is set to indicate serialization
     * compatibility since J2SE 1.4.
     */
    static final long serialVersionUID = -4795878709595146952L;
}
