CertPathBuilder

CertPathBuilder

java.security.cert

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Java 1.4

CertPathBuilder attempts to build a certification path from a specified certificate to a trust anchor. Unlike the CertificateFactory.generateCertPath( ) method, which might be used by a server to parse a certificate chain presented to it by a client, this class is used to create a new certificate chain, and might be used by a client that needs to send a certificate chain to a server. The CertPathBuilder API is provider-based, and is algorithm independent, although the use of any algorithms other than the "PKIX" standards (which work with X.509 certificate chains) require appropriate external implementations of CertPathParameters and CertPathBuilderResult .

Obtain a CertPathBuilder object by calling one of the static getInstance( ) methods , specifying the desired algorithm and, optionally , the desired provider. The "PKIX" algorithm is the only one supported by the default "SUN" provider, and is the only one that has the required algorithm-specific classes defined by this package. Once you have a CertPathBuilder , you create a CertPath object by passing a CertPathParameters object to the build( ) method. CertPathParameters is a marker interfaces that defines no method of its own, so you must use an algorithm-specific implementation such as PKIXBuilderParameters to supply the information required to build a CertPath . The build( ) method returns a CertPathBuilderResult object. Use the getCertPath( ) method of this returned object to obtain the CertPath that was built. The algorithm-specific implementation PKIXCertPathBuilderResult has additional methods that return further algorithm-specific results.

 public class  CertPathBuilder  {  // Protected Constructors  protected  CertPathBuilder  (CertPathBuilderSpi  builderSpi  ,          java.security.Provider  provider  , String  algorithm  );  // Public Class Methods  public static final String  getDefaultType  ( );        public static CertPathBuilder  getInstance  (String  algorithm  )          throws java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;        public static CertPathBuilder  getInstance  (String  algorithm  , String  provider  )          throws java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException,          java.security.NoSuchProviderException;        public static CertPathBuilder  getInstance  (String  algorithm  ,          java.security.Provider  provider  )          throws java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;  // Public Instance Methods  public final CertPathBuilderResult  build  (CertPathParameters  params  )          throws CertPathBuilderException,          java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException;        public final String  getAlgorithm  ( );        public final java.security.Provider  getProvider  ( );   }