001    /*
002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
003     * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
004     * distributed with this work for additional information
005     * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
006     * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
007     * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
008     * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
009     *
010     *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
011     *
012     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
013     * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
014     * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
015     * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
016     * specific language governing permissions and limitations
017     * under the License.
018     */
019    
020    package javax.mail;
021    
022    import java.io.Serializable;
023    
024    /**
025     * This abstract class models the addresses in a message.
026     * Addresses are Serializable so that they may be serialized along with other search terms.
027     *
028     * @version $Rev: 920714 $ $Date: 2010-03-09 01:55:49 -0500 (Tue, 09 Mar 2010) $
029     */
030    public abstract class Address implements Serializable {
031    
032         private static final long serialVersionUID = -5822459626751992278L;
033    
034        /**
035         * Subclasses must provide a suitable implementation of equals().
036         *
037         * @param object the object to compare t
038         * @return true if the subclass determines the other object is equal to this Address
039         */
040        public abstract boolean equals(Object object);
041    
042        /**
043         * Return a String that identifies this address type.
044         * @return the type of this address
045         */
046        public abstract String getType();
047    
048        /**
049         * Subclasses must provide a suitable representation of their address.
050         * @return a representation of an Address as a String
051         */
052        public abstract String toString();
053    }