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* SciJava Common shared library for SciJava software.

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package org.scijava;

import java.io.Serializable;

/**

* An object which can express itself by some unique string.

* <p>

* Two objects that produce the same identifier string can be considered

* equivalent by some metric. The main use case for these identifiers is as a

* weak form of long-term serialization:

* </p>

* <ol>

* <li>An object's identifier is saved to long-term storage such as disk.</li>

* <li>Later, in a new JVM, the identifier is retrieved from disk.</li>

* <li>An existing index of objects is queried to find the object (if any) whose

* identifier matches the retrieved one.</li>

* </ol>

* <p>

* In this way, objects themselves do not need to be {@link Serializable}, nor

* do multiple potentially equivalent objects need to be synthesized and then

* compared using {@link Object#equals}.

* </p>

*

* @author Curtis Rueden

*/

public interface Identifiable {

/** Gets a string intended to function as an identifier for the object. */

String getIdentifier();

}