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25 
26 package javax.crypto;
27 
28 /**
29  * A secret (symmetric) key.
30  * The purpose of this interface is to group (and provide type safety
31  * for) all secret key interfaces.
32  * <p>
33  * Provider implementations of this interface must overwrite the
34  * {@code equals} and {@code hashCode} methods inherited from
35  * {@link java.lang.Object}, so that secret keys are compared based on
36  * their underlying key material and not based on reference.
37  * Implementations should override the default {@code destroy} and
38  * {@code isDestroyed} methods from the
39  * {@link javax.security.auth.Destroyable} interface to enable
40  * sensitive key information to be destroyed, cleared, or in the case
41  * where such information is immutable, unreferenced.
42  * Finally, since {@code SecretKey} is {@code Serializable}, implementations
43  * should also override
44  * {@link java.io.ObjectOutputStream#writeObject(java.lang.Object)}
45  * to prevent keys that have been destroyed from being serialized.
46  *
47  * <p>Keys that implement this interface return the string {@code RAW}
48  * as their encoding format (see {@code getFormat}), and return the
49  * raw key bytes as the result of a {@code getEncoded} method call. (The
50  * {@code getFormat} and {@code getEncoded} methods are inherited
51  * from the {@link java.security.Key} parent interface.)
52  *
53  * @author Jan Luehe
54  *
55  * @see SecretKeyFactory
56  * @see Cipher
57  * @since 1.4
58  */
59 
60 public interface SecretKey extends
61     java.security.Key, javax.security.auth.Destroyable {
62 
63     /**
64      * The class fingerprint that is set to indicate serialization
65      * compatibility since J2SE 1.4.
66      */
67     static final long serialVersionUID = -4795878709595146952L;
68 }
69