Special Edition Using Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition

The Java Security Framework

The Java Security Framework is built around the java.security.Permission class. Although there are a lot of support classes, the final determination of whether you can perform an operation comes down to the comparison of two Permission objects.

A permission has two basic components: a name and a list of actions. For example, a FilePermission object has a name that is either a filename or a directory name and a list of actions that can include read, write, execute, and delete. The list of actions is a string of comma-separated action names.

The Permission class also includes an implies method that returns true if one permission implies another. The implies method is used to determine whether the permission is ultimately ...