Added in API level 1

Certificate

public abstract class Certificate
extends Object

java.lang.Object
   ↳ javax.security.cert.Certificate


Abstract class for managing a variety of identity certificates. An identity certificate is a guarantee by a principal that a public key is that of another principal. (A principal represents an entity such as an individual user, a group, or a corporation.)

This class is an abstraction for certificates that have different formats but important common uses. For example, different types of certificates, such as X.509 and PGP, share general certificate functionality (like encoding and verifying) and some types of information (like a public key).

X.509, PGP, and SDSI certificates can all be implemented by subclassing the Certificate class, even though they contain different sets of information, and they store and retrieve the information in different ways.

Note: The classes in the package javax.security.cert exist for compatibility with earlier versions of the Java Secure Sockets Extension (JSSE). New applications should instead use the standard Java SE certificate classes located in java.security.cert.

See also:

Summary

Public constructors

Certificate()

Public methods

boolean equals(Object other)

Compares this certificate for equality with the specified object.

abstract byte[] getEncoded()

Returns the encoded form of this certificate.

abstract PublicKey getPublicKey()

Gets the public key from this certificate.

int hashCode()

Returns a hashcode value for this certificate from its encoded form.

abstract String toString()

Returns a string representation of this certificate.

abstract void verify(PublicKey key, String sigProvider)

Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.

abstract void verify(PublicKey key)

Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.

Inherited methods

Public constructors

Certificate

Added in API level 1
public Certificate ()

Public methods

equals

Added in API level 1
public boolean equals (Object other)

Compares this certificate for equality with the specified object. If the other object is an instanceof Certificate, then its encoded form is retrieved and compared with the encoded form of this certificate.

Parameters
other Object: the object to test for equality with this certificate.

Returns
boolean true if the encoded forms of the two certificates match, false otherwise.

getEncoded

Added in API level 1
public abstract byte[] getEncoded ()

Returns the encoded form of this certificate. It is assumed that each certificate type would have only a single form of encoding; for example, X.509 certificates would be encoded as ASN.1 DER.

Returns
byte[] encoded form of this certificate

Throws
CertificateEncodingException on internal certificate encoding failure

getPublicKey

Added in API level 1
public abstract PublicKey getPublicKey ()

Gets the public key from this certificate.

Returns
PublicKey the public key.

hashCode

Added in API level 1
public int hashCode ()

Returns a hashcode value for this certificate from its encoded form.

Returns
int the hashcode value.

toString

Added in API level 1
public abstract String toString ()

Returns a string representation of this certificate.

Returns
String a string representation of this certificate.

verify

Added in API level 1
public abstract void verify (PublicKey key, 
                String sigProvider)

Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key. This method uses the signature verification engine supplied by the specified provider.

Parameters
key PublicKey: the PublicKey used to carry out the verification.

sigProvider String: the name of the signature provider.

Throws
NoSuchAlgorithmException on unsupported signature algorithms.
InvalidKeyException on incorrect key.
NoSuchProviderException on incorrect provider.
SignatureException on signature errors.
CertificateException on encoding errors.

verify

Added in API level 1
public abstract void verify (PublicKey key)

Verifies that this certificate was signed using the private key that corresponds to the specified public key.

Parameters
key PublicKey: the PublicKey used to carry out the verification.

Throws
NoSuchAlgorithmException on unsupported signature algorithms.
InvalidKeyException on incorrect key.
NoSuchProviderException if there's no default provider.
SignatureException on signature errors.
CertificateException on encoding errors.