The Type class captures the fundamental concept of categorizing an object.

Type are designed to be shared among various OSIDs and Managers. The exact meaning of a particular type is left to the developers who use a given Type subclass. The form of the Type class enables categorization. There are four Strings that make up the Type class: authority, domain, keyword, and description. The first three of these Strings are used by the isEqual method to determine if two instance of the Type class are equal. The fourth String, description, is used to clarify the semantic meaning of the instance.

<p> An example of a FunctionType instance: </p>

<p>

• authority is "higher ed"
  - domain is "authorization
  - keyword is "writing checks"
  - description is "This is the FunctionType for writing checks"

</p>

<p> This Type could be used with the authorization OSID. It could also be used with the dictionary OSID to determine the text to display for a given locale (for example, CANADA_FRENCH). The dictionary OSID could use the FunctionType instance as a key to find the display text, but it could also use just the keyword string from the FunctionType as a key. By using the keyword the same display text could then be used for other FunctionTypes such as:

• authority is "mit"
  - domain is "accounting"
  - keyword is "writing checks"
  - description is "A/P check writing type"
  An instance of the Type class can be used in a variety of ways to

categorize information either as a complete object or as one of its parts (ie authority, domain, keyword). </p>

<p> OSID Version: 2.0 </p>

<p> Licensed under the org.osid.SidImplementationLicenseMIT. </p>

• copyright: Copyright &copy; 2005, Middlebury College
• version: $Id: SObject.class.php,v 1.4 2007/09/04 20:25:28 adamfranco Exp $
• author: Adam Franco <AT adamfranco DOT com adam AT adamfranco DOT com> <afranco AT middlebury DOT edu>

Located in /harmoni/oki2/osid/shared/Type.php (line 55)

SObject
   |
   --Type

Class	Description
StorableOKIType	This is the StorablePrimitive equivalent of OKIType.
HarmoniType	A generic type for Harmoni. Constructor takes the desired authority, domain, keyword, and description.

Inherited Methods

Inherited From SObject

SObject::asA()
SObject::asString()
SObject::copy()
SObject::copySameFrom()
SObject::copyTwoLevel()
SObject::deepCopy()
SObject::isEqual()
SObject::isEqualTo()
SObject::isNotEqualTo()
SObject::isNotReferenceTo()
SObject::isReferenceTo()
SObject::newFrom()
SObject::postCopy()
SObject::printableString()
SObject::shallowCopy()
SObject::_deepCopyArray()