HierarchicalIdentifier (yangtools-docs 8.0.1 API)

All Superinterfaces:

Identifier, Immutable, MutationBehaviour<Immutable>, Serializable

All Known Implementing Classes:

YangInstanceIdentifier
```
public interface HierarchicalIdentifier<T extends HierarchicalIdentifier<T>>
extends Identifier
```
An Identifier tied to some tree-like structure, similar to how Path is tied to a conceptual file system. In addition to equivalence class implied by Identifier, the hierarchical nature of these identifiers also introduces a notion of containment: a HierarchicalIdentifier is said to contain another HierarchicalIdentifier if the former points to an ancestor node of the node pointed to by the latter in the same instance of the tree-like structure they are defined on. This property is expressed through contains(HierarchicalIdentifier).

- Method Summary
  
  All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods
  Modifier and Type Method Description
  
  boolean contains(T other)
  Check if this identifier contains some other identifier.
  - Methods inherited from interface org.opendaylight.yangtools.concepts.Identifier
    equals, hashCode, toString

- Method Detail
  - contains
```
boolean contains(T other)
```
    Check if this identifier contains some other identifier. If we take HierarchicalIdentifier to be similar to a Path, this is method is the equivalent of other.startsWith(this).
    
    Parameters:
    
    other - Other identifier, may not be null
    
    Returns:
    
    True if this identifier contains the other identifier
    
    Throws:
    
    NullPointerException - if other is null