A (transparent) specification of the key material that constitutes a cryptographic key.
If the key is stored on a hardware device, its specification may contain information that helps identify the key on the device.
A key may be specified in an algorithm-specific way, or in an algorithm-independent encoding format (such as ASN.1). For example, a DSA private key may be specified by its components x
, p
, q
, and g
(see {@link DSAPrivateKeySpec}), or it may be specified using its DER encoding (see {@link PKCS8EncodedKeySpec}).
This interface contains no methods or constants. Its only purpose is to group (and provide type safety for) all key specifications. All key specifications must implement this interface.
@author Jan Luehe
@version 1.18, 11/17/05
@see java.security.Key
@see java.security.KeyFactory
@see EncodedKeySpec
@see X509EncodedKeySpec
@see PKCS8EncodedKeySpec
@see DSAPrivateKeySpec
@see DSAPublicKeySpec
@since 1.2