[cas-dev] Principal.toString

[Andrew Petro]

Marvin,

I'm not familiar with adding toString() to an interface -- I've only 
seen people advocating adding it to implementations.  Is that what you 
mean, that implementations of the interface, like implementations of all 
Java classes, should implement toString()?

I'd be reluctant for the Principal *interface* to constrain 
implementations as to what they ought to do the details of what their 
toString() output ought to look like, but I'm in wholehearted agreement 
that the implementations should implement the method.

Andrew

> I propose adding a toString method to the Principal interface.  The
> value would be in simplifying logging statements:
>
> if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
> 	log.debug("Resolved " + principal);
> }
>
> As principals grow to include useful attributes (e.g. SimplePrincipal),
> it would be enormously helpful to have simple debugging statements as
> above print something like:
>
> SimplePrincipal::id=serac,
> attributes=mail:{serac at vt.edu,serac at exchange.vt.edu},
> groups={staff,cas,admins}
>
> Of course other classes/interfaces could benefit from toString methods,
> but Principal is used so often in logging/debugging that requiring
> implementers to provide a string representation makes sense.
>
> Thoughts and feedback appreciated.
>
> Marvin
>