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 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License

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 * accompanied this code).

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package javax.crypto;

/**

 * A secret (symmetric) key.

 * The purpose of this interface is to group (and provide type safety

 * for) all secret key interfaces.

 * <p>

 * Provider implementations of this interface must overwrite the

 * {@code equals} and {@code hashCode} methods inherited from

 * {@link java.lang.Object}, so that secret keys are compared based on

 * their underlying key material and not based on reference.

 * Implementations should override the default {@code destroy} and

 * {@code isDestroyed} methods from the

 * {@link javax.security.auth.Destroyable} interface to enable

 * sensitive key information to be destroyed, cleared, or in the case

 * where such information is immutable, unreferenced.

 * Finally, since {@code SecretKey} is {@code Serializable}, implementations

 * should also override

 * {@link java.io.ObjectOutputStream#writeObject(java.lang.Object)}

 * to prevent keys that have been destroyed from being serialized.

 *

 * <p>Keys that implement this interface return the string {@code RAW}

 * as their encoding format (see {@code getFormat}), and return the

 * raw key bytes as the result of a {@code getEncoded} method call. (The

 * {@code getFormat} and {@code getEncoded} methods are inherited

 * from the {@link java.security.Key} parent interface.)

 *

 * @author Jan Luehe

 *

 * @see SecretKeyFactory

 * @see Cipher

 * @since 1.4

 */

public interface SecretKey extends

    java.security.Key, javax.security.auth.Destroyable {

    /**

     * The class fingerprint that is set to indicate serialization

     * compatibility since J2SE 1.4.

     */

    static final long serialVersionUID = -4795878709595146952L;

}