Property Service (Java Enterprise in a Nutshell)

11.12. Property Service

This service defines name/value pairs that can be assigned to objects, without being explicitly defined or required by their IDL interfaces. Properties can represent any application-specific attributes that can tag objects for various purposes.

The Property Service provides interfaces for defining, initializing, and iterating through sets of properties, but it does not specify how properties are associated with objects, as this is an implementation detail.

A set of properties is represented by the PropertySet interface, which allows you to create, modify, or delete properties in the set. A property is represented as a string name and an Any value. A subclass of PropertySet, PropertySetDef, allows you to query for metadata about the properties (e.g., whether each is read/write or read-only). A PropertiesIterator can be used to iterate through the contents of a set, and a PropertySetFactory allows you to create new PropertySet objects.