java.security.cert

Class Certificate

java.lang.Object

java.security.cert.Certificate

All Implemented Interfaces:

Serializable

Direct Known Subclasses:

X509Certificate

public abstract class Certificate
extends Object
implements Serializable

Abstract class for managing a variety of identity certificates. An identity certificate is a binding of a principal to a public key which is vouched for by another principal. (A principal represents an entity such as an individual user, a group, or a corporation.)

This class is an abstraction for certificates that have different formats but important common uses. For example, different types of certificates, such as X.509 and PGP, share general certificate functionality (like encoding and verifying) and some types of information (like a public key).

X.509, PGP, and SDSI certificates can all be implemented by subclassing the Certificate class, even though they contain different sets of information, and they store and retrieve the information in different ways.

Author:

Hemma Prafullchandra

See Also:

X509Certificate, CertificateFactory, Serialized Form

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Modifier	Constructor and Description
protected	Certificate(String type) Creates a certificate of the specified type.

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
String	getType() Returns the type of this certificate.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

Certificate

protected Certificate(String type)

Creates a certificate of the specified type.

Parameters:

type - the standard name of the certificate type. See the CertificateFactory section in the Java Cryptography Architecture Standard Algorithm Name Documentation for information about standard certificate types.

Method Detail

getType

public final String getType()

Returns the type of this certificate.

Returns:

the type of this certificate.