org.hypergraphdb
Interface HGHandle

All Known Subinterfaces:

HGLiveHandle, HGManagedLiveHandle, HGPersistentHandle

All Known Implementing Classes:

DefaultLiveHandle, DefaultManagedLiveHandle, PhantomHandle, PhantomManagedHandle, UUIDPersistentHandle

public interface HGHandle

A HGHandle represents a reference to a hypergraph atom. Hypergraph references are completely managed by HyperGraphDB and should be treated by applications as abstract reference types.

A hypergraph handle holds the system-level identity of an atom. HyperGraphDB will return concrete implementations of this interface dependending on configuration, context of usage and similar considerations. In other words, a handle is essentially a reference token. One can think of a handle as a memory location, a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) or a URI.

Generally, handles are only valid during the run-time of a system. To obtain a permanent handle, one which transcends system startup and shutdown, the HyperGraph.getPersistentHandle method should be used.

Author:

Borislav Iordanov