madkit.kernel

Class Message

java.lang.Object

madkit.kernel.Message

All Implemented Interfaces:

Serializable, Cloneable

Direct Known Subclasses:

ActMessage, ObjectMessage, XMLMessage

public class Message
extends Object
implements Cloneable, Serializable

The generic MaDKit message class. Create Subclasses to adapt it to your needs. This class is quite lightweight, it just defines sender and receivers (expressed with AgentAddress class).

Version:

5

Author:

Fabien Michel, Olivier Gutknecht

See Also:

AgentAddress, AbstractAgent.sendMessage(AgentAddress, Message), AbstractAgent.sendMessage(String, String, String, Message), Serialized Form

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Constructor and Description
Message()

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
protected Message	clone() Returns a shadow copy of the message.
ConversationID	getConversationID() returns the conversation ID for this message.
AgentAddress	getReceiver() Returns the agent address corresponding to the agent that receive this message.
AgentAddress	getSender() Returns the agent address corresponding to the agent that sends this message.
String	toString()

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

Message

public Message()

Method Detail

getReceiver

public AgentAddress getReceiver()

Returns the agent address corresponding to the agent that receive this message.

Returns:

the receiver

getSender

public AgentAddress getSender()

Returns the agent address corresponding to the agent that sends this message.

Returns:

the message's sender or null if the message has not been sent by an agent, but by any other kind of object.

See Also:

AbstractAgent.sendMessage(AgentAddress, Message), AbstractAgent.sendMessage(String, String, String, Message)

toString

public String toString()

Overrides:

toString in class Object

clone

protected Message clone()

Returns a shadow copy of the message. Message subclasses requiring deep copies of their object fields should override this method. Especially, message cloning is used by AbstractAgent.broadcastMessage(String, String, String, Message) and the like to set different receivers for each cloned message.

Overrides:

clone in class Object

Returns:

a shadow copy of the message.

getConversationID

public ConversationID getConversationID()

returns the conversation ID for this message. When a message is created, it is given an ID that will be used to tag all the messages that will be created for answering this message using AbstractAgent.sendReply(Message, Message) like methods. Especially, if the answer is again used for replying, the ID will be used again to tag this new answer, and so on.

Returns:

the ID of the conversation to which this message belongs to.