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/**

 * Contains classes related to developing <em>beans</em> -- components based on

 * the JavaBeans™ architecture. A few of the classes are used by beans

 * while they run in an application. For example, the event classes are used by

 * beans that fire property and vetoable change events (see

 * {@link java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent}). However, most of the classes in this

 * package are meant to be used by a bean editor (that is, a development

 * environment for customizing and putting together beans to create an

 * application). In particular, these classes help the bean editor create a user

 * interface that the user can use to customize the bean. For example, a bean

 * may contain a property of a special type that a bean editor may not know how

 * to handle. By using the {@code PropertyEditor} interface, a bean developer

 * can provide an editor for this special type.

 * <p>

 * To minimize the resources used by a bean, the classes used by bean editors

 * are loaded only when the bean is being edited. They are not needed while the

 * bean is running in an application and therefore not loaded. This information

 * is kept in what's called a bean-info (see {@link java.beans.BeanInfo}).

 * <p>

 * Unless explicitly stated, null values or empty Strings are not valid

 * parameters for the methods in this package. You may expect to see exceptions

 * if these parameters are used.

 *

 * <h2>Long-Term Persistence</h2>

 * As of v1.4, the {@code java.beans} package provides support for <em>long-term

 * persistence</em> -- reading and writing a bean as a textual representation of

 * its property values. The property values are treated as beans, and are

 * recursively read or written to capture their publicly available state. This

 * approach is suitable for long-term storage because it relies only on public

 * API, rather than the likely-to-change private implementation.

 *

 * <blockquote><hr><b>Note:</b> The persistence scheme cannot automatically

 * instantiate custom inner classes, such as you might use for event handlers.

 * By using the {@link java.beans.EventHandler} class instead of inner classes

 * for custom event handlers, you can avoid this problem.<hr></blockquote>

 * <p>

 * You read and write beans in XML format using the

 * {@link java.beans.XMLDecoder} and {@link java.beans.XMLEncoder} classes,

 * respectively. One notable feature of the persistence scheme is that reading

 * in a bean requires no special knowledge of the bean.

 * <p>

 * Writing out a bean, on the other hand, sometimes requires special knowledge

 * of the bean's type. If the bean's state can be expressed using only the

 * no-argument constructor and public getter and setter methods for properties,

 * no special knowledge is required. Otherwise, the bean requires a custom

 * <em>persistence delegate</em> -- an object that is in charge of writing out

 * beans of a particular type. All classes provided in the JDK that descend from

 * {@code java.awt.Component}, as well as all their properties, automatically

 * have persistence delegates.

 * <p>

 * If you need (or choose) to provide a persistence delegate for a bean, you can

 * do so either by using a {@link java.beans.DefaultPersistenceDelegate}

 * instance or by creating your own subclass of {@code PersistenceDelegate}. If

 * the only reason a bean needs a persistence delegate is because you want to

 * invoke the bean's constructor with property values as arguments, you can

 * create the bean's persistence delegate with the one-argument

 * {@code DefaultPersistenceDelegate} constructor. Otherwise, you need to

 * implement your own persistence delegate, for which you're likely to need the

 * following classes:

 * <dl>

 *     <dt>{@link java.beans.PersistenceDelegate}</dt>

 *     <dd>The abstract class from which all persistence delegates descend. Your

 *     subclass should use its knowledge of the bean's type to provide whatever

 *     {@code Statement}s and {@code Expression}s are necessary to create the

 *     bean and restore its state.</dd>

 *     <dt>{@link java.beans.Statement}</dt>

 *     <dd>Represents the invocation of a single method on an object. Includes

 *     a set of arguments to the method.</dd>

 *     <dt>{@link java.beans.Expression}</dt>

 *     <dd>A subclass of {@code Statement} used for methods that return a

 *     value.</dd>

 * </dl>

 * <p>

 * Once you create a persistence delegate, you register it using the

 * {@code setPersistenceDelegate} method of {@code XMLEncoder}.

 *

 * <h2>Related Documentation</h2>

 * For overview, architecture, and tutorial documentation, please see:

 * <ul>

 *     <li><a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/javabeans/">

 *         JavaBeans</a>, a trail in <em>The Java Tutorial</em>.</li>

 *     <li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/persistence2-141443.html">

 *         Long-Term Persistence</a>, an article in

 *         <em>The Swing Connection</em>.</li>

 * </ul>

 */

package java.beans;