Name

Interface java.security.Key

Description

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 make up a key is the encoded format of the key.

Interface Definition

public abstract 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, SecretKey

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