/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2000, 2003 IBM Corporation and others.
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials 
 * are made available under the terms of the Common Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/cpl-v10.html
 * 
 * Contributors:
 *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
 *******************************************************************************/
package net.sourceforge.phpdt.core;

/**
 * Represents a field declared in a type.
 * <p>
 * This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients.
 * </p>
 */
public interface IField extends IMember {
	/**
	 * Returns the constant value associated with this field or
	 * <code>null</code> if this field has none. Returns either a subclass of
	 * <code>Number</code>, or a <code>String</code>, depending on the
	 * type of the field. For example, if the field is of type
	 * <code>short</code>, this returns a <code>Short</code>.
	 * 
	 * @return the constant value associated with this field or
	 *         <code>null</code> if this field has none.
	 * @exception JavaModelException
	 *                if this element does not exist or if an exception occurs
	 *                while accessing its corresponding resource
	 */
	public Object getConstant() throws JavaModelException;

	/**
	 * Returns the simple name of this field.
	 * 
	 * @return the simple name of this field.
	 */
	String getElementName();

	/**
	 * Returns the type signature of this field.
	 * 
	 * @see Signature
	 * @return the type signature of this field.
	 * @exception JavaModelException
	 *                if this element does not exist or if an exception occurs
	 *                while accessing its corresponding resource
	 */
	String getTypeSignature() throws JavaModelException;
}