16.22. Names

ModeShape uses names to identify different types of objects. As we'll soon see, each property of a node is given by a name, and each segment in a path is comprised of a name.

ModeShape names consist of a local part that is qualified with a namespace. The local part can consist of any character, and the namespace is identified by a URI. Namespaces were introduced in the ExecutionContext and are managed by the ExecutionContext's namespace registry. Namespaces help reduce the risk of clashes in names that have an equivalent same local part.

All names are immutable, which means that once a Name object is created, it will never change. This characteristic makes it much easier to write thread-safe code - the objects never change and therefore require no locks or synchronization to guarantee atomic reads. This is a technique that is more and more often found in newer languages and frameworks that simplify concurrent operations.

You should use a factory to create Name instances.