All Packages  Class Hierarchy  This Package  Previous  Next  Index

Class javax.security.cert.Certificate 

java.lang.Object
   |
   +----javax.security.cert.Certificate
public abstract class Certificate
extends Object

Abstract class for managing a variety of identity certificates. An identity certificate is a guarantee by a principal that a public key is that of another principal. (A principal represents an entity such as an individual user, a group, or a corporation.)

This class is an abstraction for certificates that have different formats but important common uses. For example, different types of certificates, such as X.509 and PGP, share general certificate functionality (like encoding and verifying) and some types of information (like a public key).

X.509, PGP, and SDSI certificates can all be implemented by subclassing the Certificate class, even though they contain different sets of information, and they store and retrieve the information in different ways.

See Also:
X509Certificate

Constructor Index

o Certificate()

Method Index

o equals(Object)
Compares this certificate for equality with the specified object.
o getEncoded()
Returns the encoded form of this certificate.
o getPublicKey()
Gets the public key from this certificate.
o hashCode()
Returns a hashcode value for this certificate from its encoded form.
o toString()
Returns a string representation of this certificate.
o verify(PublicKey)
Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.
o verify(PublicKey, String)
Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.

Constructors

o Certificate 
 public Certificate()

Methods

o equals 
 public boolean equals(Object other)
Compares this certificate for equality with the specified object. If the other object is an instanceof Certificate, then its encoded form is retrieved and compared with the encoded form of this certificate.

Parameters:
other - the object to test for equality with this certificate.
Returns:
true iff the encoded forms of the two certificates match, false otherwise.
Overrides:
equals in class Object
o hashCode 
 public int hashCode()
Returns a hashcode value for this certificate from its encoded form.

Returns:
the hashcode value.
Overrides:
hashCode in class Object
o getEncoded 
 public abstract byte[] getEncoded() throws CertificateEncodingException
Returns the encoded form of this certificate. It is assumed that each certificate type would have only a single form of encoding; for example, X.509 certificates would be encoded as ASN.1 DER.

Throws: CertificateEncodingException
on internal certificate encoding failure
o verify 
 public abstract void verify(PublicKey key) throws CertificateException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeyException, NoSuchProviderException, SignatureException
Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.

Parameters:
key - the PublicKey used to carry out the verification.
Throws: NoSuchAlgorithmException
on unsupported signature algorithms.
Throws: InvalidKeyException
on incorrect key.
Throws: NoSuchProviderException
if there's no default provider.
Throws: SignatureException
on signature errors.
Throws: CertificateException
on encoding errors.
o verify 
 public abstract void verify(PublicKey key,
                             String sigProvider) throws CertificateException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeyException, NoSuchProviderException, SignatureException
Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key. This method uses the signature verification engine supplied by the specified provider.

Parameters:
key - the PublicKey used to carry out the verification.
sigProvider - the name of the signature provider.
Throws: NoSuchAlgorithmException
on unsupported signature algorithms.
Throws: InvalidKeyException
on incorrect key.
Throws: NoSuchProviderException
on incorrect provider.
Throws: SignatureException
on signature errors.
Throws: CertificateException
on encoding errors.
o toString 
 public abstract String toString()
Returns a string representation of this certificate.

Returns:
a string representation of this certificate.
Overrides:
toString in class Object
o getPublicKey 
 public abstract PublicKey getPublicKey()
Gets the public key from this certificate.

Returns:
the public key. 
All Packages  Class Hierarchy  This Package  Previous  Next  Index