Package org.geotools.api.feature

Interface Feature

All Superinterfaces:
Attribute, ComplexAttribute, Property
All Known Subinterfaces:
SimpleFeature
All Known Implementing Classes:
DecoratingFeature, FeatureImpl, JDBCFeatureReader.ResultSetFeature, MongoDBObjectFeature, MongoFeature, PreGeneralizedSimpleFeature, SimpleFeatureImpl
public interface Feature extends ComplexAttribute
An instance of FeatureType representing a geographic feature composed of geometric and non-geometric properties.

Beyond being a complex attribute, a feature contains the following additional information:

  • A default geometry. To be used when drawing when nothing more specific has been provided.
  • The bounds of all the geometric attributes of the feature
Since:
GeoAPI 2.2
Author:
Jody Garnett (Refractions Research), Justin Deoliveira (The Open Planning Project)
See Also:

  • Method Details

    • getType

      FeatureType getType()
      Override and type narrow to FeatureType.
      Specified by:
      getType in interface Attribute
      Specified by:
      getType in interface ComplexAttribute
      Specified by:
      getType in interface Property
      Returns:
      The feature type
      See Also:

    • getIdentifier

      FeatureId getIdentifier()
      A unique identifier for the feature.

      getType().isIdentifiable() must return true so this value must not return null .

      Generation of the identifier is dependent on the underlying data storage medium. Often this identifier is not persistent. Mediums such shapefiles and database tables have "keys" built in which map naturally to persistent feature identifiers. But other mediums do not have such keys and may have to generate feature identifiers "on-the-fly". This means that client code being able to depend on this value as a persistent entity is dependent on which storage medium or data source is being used.

      Specified by:
      getIdentifier in interface Attribute
      Returns:
      The feature identifier, never null.

    • getBounds

      BoundingBox getBounds()
      The bounds of this Feature, if available.

      This value is derived from any geometric attributes that the feature is composed of.

      In the case that the feature has no geometric attributes this method should return an empty bounds, ie, bounds.isEmpty() == true. This method should never return null.

      The coordinate reference system of the returned bounds is derived from the geometric attributes which were used to compute the bounds. In the event that the feature contains multiple geometric attributes which have different crs's, the one defined by getDefaultGeometryProperty() should take precedence and the others should be reprojected accordingly.

      Returns:
      the feature bounds, possibly empty.

    • getDefaultGeometryProperty

      GeometryAttribute getDefaultGeometryProperty()
      The default geometric attribute of the feature.

      This method returns null in the case where no such attribute exists.

      Returns:
      The default geometry attribute, or null.

    • setDefaultGeometryProperty

      void setDefaultGeometryProperty(GeometryAttribute geometryAttribute)
      Sets the default geometric attribute of the feature.

      This value must be an attribute which is already defined for the feature. In other words, this method can not be used to add a new attribute to the feature.

      Parameters:
      geometryAttribute - The new geomtric attribute.
      Throws:
      IllegalArgumentException - If the specified attribute is not already an attribute of the feature.