Module java.base

Package javax.crypto

Interface SecretKey

All Superinterfaces:

Destroyable, Key, Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

PBEKey

All Known Implementing Classes:

EncryptionKey, KerberosKey, SecretKeySpec

public interface SecretKey
extends Key, Destroyable

A secret (symmetric) key. The purpose of this interface is to group (and provide type safety for) all secret key interfaces.

Provider implementations of this interface must overwrite the equals and hashCode methods inherited from Object, so that secret keys are compared based on their underlying key material and not based on reference. Implementations should override the default destroy and isDestroyed methods from the Destroyable interface to enable sensitive key information to be destroyed, cleared, or in the case where such information is immutable, unreferenced. Finally, since SecretKey is Serializable, implementations should also override ObjectOutputStream.writeObject(java.lang.Object) to prevent keys that have been destroyed from being serialized.

Keys that implement this interface return the string RAW as their encoding format (see getFormat), and return the raw key bytes as the result of a getEncoded method call. (The getFormat and getEncoded methods are inherited from the Key parent interface.)

Since:

1.4

See Also:

SecretKeyFactory, Cipher

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field	Description
static long	serialVersionUID	Deprecated. A serialVersionUID field in an interface is ineffectual.

Method Summary

Methods declared in interface javax.security.auth.Destroyable

destroy, isDestroyed

Methods declared in interface java.security.Key

getAlgorithm, getEncoded, getFormat

Field Detail

serialVersionUID

@Deprecated
static final long serialVersionUID

Deprecated.

A serialVersionUID field in an interface is ineffectual. Do not use; no replacement.

The class fingerprint that is set to indicate serialization compatibility since J2SE 1.4.

See Also:

Constant Field Values