Java Security, 2nd Edition

Name

Interface java.security.Key

Synopsis

A key is essentially a series of bytes that are used by a cryptographic algorithm. Depending on the type of the key, the key may be used only for particular operations and only for particular algorithms, and it may have certain mathematical properties (including a mathematical relationship to other keys). The series of bytes that comprise a key is the encoded format of the key.

Interface Definition

public interface java.security.Key
	implements java.io.Serializable {

	// Instance Methods
	public abstract String getAlgorithm(  );
	public abstract byte[] getEncoded(  );
	public abstract String getFormat(  );
}

See also

PrivateKey, PublicKey, javax.crypto.SecretKey