Ordinarily, the controller will be a GUI providing a user interface for a subclass of IIOMetadata for a particular plug-in. Controllers need not be GUIs, however.

The default implementation calls getController and the calls activate on the returned object if hasController returns true.

The equals method implements an equivalence relation on non-null object references:

• It is reflexive: for any non-null reference value x, x.equals(x) should return true.
• It is symmetric: for any non-null reference values x and y, x.equals(y) should return true if and only if y.equals(x) returns true.
• It is transitive: for any non-null reference values x, y, and z, if x.equals(y) returns true and y.equals(z) returns true, then x.equals(z) should return true.
• It is consistent: for any non-null reference values x and y, multiple invocations of x.equals(y) consistently return true or consistently return false, provided no information used in equals comparisons on the objects is modified.
• For any non-null reference value x, x.equals(null) should return false.

The equals method for class Object implements the most discriminating possible equivalence relation on objects; that is, for any non-null reference values x and y, this method returns true if and only if x and y refer to the same object (x == y has the value true).

Note that it is generally necessary to override the hashCode method whenever this method is overridden, so as to maintain the general contract for the hashCode method, which states that equal objects must have equal hash codes.

The names of the available metadata formats may be queried using the getMetadataFormatNames method.

The default implementation returns the value of the controller instance variable.

The default implementation returns the value of the defaultController instance variable.

The default implementation returns a clone of the extraMetadataFormatNames instance variable.

The default implementation checks the name against the global standard metadata format name, and returns that format if it is supported. Otherwise, it checks against the native format names followed by any additional format names. If a match is found, it retrieves the name of the IIOMetadataFormat class from nativeMetadataFormatClassName or extraMetadataFormatClassNames as appropriate, and constructs an instance of that class using its getInstance method.

The default implementation calls getNativeMetadataFormatName, isStandardMetadataFormatSupported, and getExtraMetadataFormatNames and returns the combined results.

The structure and contents of the "native" metadata format are defined by the plug-in that created this IIOMetadata object. Plug-ins for simple formats will usually create a dummy node for the root, and then a series of child nodes representing individual tags, chunks, or keyword/value pairs. A plug-in may choose whether or not to document its native format.

The default implementation returns the value of the nativeMetadataFormatName instance variable.

The default implementation returns true if the getController method returns a non-null value.

The general contract of hashCode is:

• Whenever it is invoked on the same object more than once during an execution of a Java application, the hashCode method must consistently return the same integer, provided no information used in equals comparisons on the object is modified. This integer need not remain consistent from one execution of an application to another execution of the same application.
• If two objects are equal according to the equals(Object) method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce the same integer result.
• It is not required that if two objects are unequal according to the method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce distinct integer results. However, the programmer should be aware that producing distinct integer results for unequal objects may improve the performance of hashtables.

As much as is reasonably practical, the hashCode method defined by class Object does return distinct integers for distinct objects. (This is typically implemented by converting the internal address of the object into an integer, but this implementation technique is not required by the Java^TM programming language.)

The default implementation returns the value of the standardFormatSupported instance variable.

As the semantics of how a tree or subtree may be merged with another tree are completely format-specific, plug-in authors may implement this method in whatever manner is most appropriate for the format, including simply replacing all existing state with the contents of the given tree.

The awakened thread will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened thread will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened thread enjoys no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. A thread becomes the owner of the object's monitor in one of three ways:

• By executing a synchronized instance method of that object.
• By executing the body of a synchronized statement that synchronizes on the object.
• For objects of type Class, by executing a synchronized static method of that class.

Only one thread at a time can own an object's monitor.

The awakened threads will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened threads will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened threads enjoy no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.

The default implementation sets the controller instance variable to the supplied value.

The default implementation calls reset followed by mergeTree(formatName, root).

The toString method for class Object returns a string consisting of the name of the class of which the object is an instance, the at-sign character `@', and the unsigned hexadecimal representation of the hash code of the object. In other words, this method returns a string equal to the value of:

 getClass().getName() + '@' + Integer.toHexString(hashCode())
 

The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until another thread notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up either through a call to the notify method or the notifyAll method. The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.

As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait();
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }
 

The current thread must own this object's monitor.

This method causes the current thread (call it T) to place itself in the wait set for this object and then to relinquish any and all synchronization claims on this object. Thread T becomes disabled for thread scheduling purposes and lies dormant until one of four things happens:

• Some other thread invokes the notify method for this object and thread T happens to be arbitrarily chosen as the thread to be awakened.
• Some other thread invokes the notifyAll method for this object.
• Some other thread interrupts thread T.
• The specified amount of real time has elapsed, more or less. If timeout is zero, however, then real time is not taken into consideration and the thread simply waits until notified.

A thread can also wake up without being notified, interrupted, or timing out, a so-called spurious wakeup. While this will rarely occur in practice, applications must guard against it by testing for the condition that should have caused the thread to be awakened, and continuing to wait if the condition is not satisfied. In other words, waits should always occur in loops, like this one:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait(timeout);
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }
 

If the current thread is interrupted by another thread while it is waiting, then an InterruptedException is thrown. This exception is not thrown until the lock status of this object has been restored as described above.

Note that the wait method, as it places the current thread into the wait set for this object, unlocks only this object; any other objects on which the current thread may be synchronized remain locked while the thread waits.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.

This method is similar to the wait method of one argument, but it allows finer control over the amount of time to wait for a notification before giving up. The amount of real time, measured in nanoseconds, is given by:

 1000000*timeout+nanos

In all other respects, this method does the same thing as the method of one argument. In particular, wait(0, 0) means the same thing as wait(0).

The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until either of the following two conditions has occurred:

• Another thread notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up either through a call to the notify method or the notifyAll method.
• The timeout period, specified by timeout milliseconds plus nanos nanoseconds arguments, has elapsed.

The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.

As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait(timeout, nanos);
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }