/*
 * Portions Copyright  2000-2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights
 * Reserved.  Use is subject to license terms.
 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER
 * 
 * This program 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.
 * 
 * This program 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 at /legal/license.txt).
 * 
 * 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 or visit www.sun.com if you need additional
 * information or have any questions.
 */
/*
 */
package gov.nist.javax.sdp.fields;

/**
 * Placeholder root class for SDP headers.
 *
 * @version JAIN-SIP-1.1
 *
 *
 * <a href="{@docRoot}/uncopyright.html">This code is in the public domain.</a>
 *
 */

public abstract class SDPField extends SDPObject {
    /** Session Description Protocol field. */
    protected String fieldName;

    /**
     * Gets an encoded string representation of the instance.
     * @return encoded string of object contents
     */
    public abstract String encode();

    /**
     * Constructs a field with initial name.
     * @param hname the field hname
     */
    protected SDPField(String hname) {
	fieldName = hname;
    }

    /**
     * Gets the field name.
     * @return the field name
     */
    public String getFieldName() {
	return fieldName;
    }

    /** 
     * Returns the type character for the field.
     * @return the type character for the field.
     */
    public char getTypeChar() {
	if (fieldName == null)
	    return '\0';
	else return fieldName.charAt(0);
    }

    /** Default constructor. */
    public SDPField() {}

    /**
     * Gets a user friendly textual represntation
     * of the object contents.
     * @return encoded string of object contents.
     */
    public String toString() { return this.encode(); }

}