public Record() 
{

}

instantiates a blank record strictly for ID matching

 public Record(RecordInputStream in) 
{
        validateSid(in.getSid());
        fillFields(in);
}

Constructor Record

Parameters:

in - the RecordInputstream to read the record from

 public Object clone() 
{
      throw new RuntimeException("The class "+getClass().getName()+" needs to define a clone method");
}

 public Record cloneViaReserialise() 
{
    	// Do it via a re-serialise
    	// It's a cheat, but it works...
    	byte[] b = serialize();
    	RecordInputStream rinp = new RecordInputStream(
    			new ByteArrayInputStream(b)
    	);
    	rinp.nextRecord();
    	Record[] r = RecordFactory.createRecord(rinp);
    	if(r.length != 1) {
    		throw new IllegalStateException("Re-serialised a record to clone it, but got " + r.length + " records back!");
    	}
    	return r[0];
}

Clone the current record, via a call to serialise it, and another to create a new record from the bytes. May only be used for classes which don't have internal counts / ids in them. For those which do, a full record-aware serialise is needed, which allocates new ids / counts as needed.

 abstract protected  void fillFields(RecordInputStream in)
called by the constructor, should set class level fields. Should throw
runtime exception for bad/icomplete data.

 public int getRecordSize() 
{
        // this is kind od a stupid way to do it but for now we just serialize
        // the record and return the size of the byte array
        return serialize().length;
}

gives the current serialized size of the record. Should include the sid and reclength (4 bytes).

 abstract public short getSid()
return the non static version of the id for this record.

 public boolean isInValueSection() 
{
        return false;
}

DBCELL, ROW, VALUES all say yes

 public boolean isValue() 
{
        return false;
}

tells whether this type of record contains a value

 public byte[] serialize() 
{
        byte[] retval = new byte[ getRecordSize() ];
        serialize(0, retval);
        return retval;
}

called by the class that is responsible for writing this sucker. Subclasses should implement this so that their data is passed back in a byte array.

 abstract public int serialize(int offset,
    byte[] data)
called by the class that is responsible for writing this sucker.
Subclasses should implement this so that their data is passed back in a
byte array.

 public String toString() 
{
        return super.toString();
}

get a string representation of the record (for biffview/debugging)

 abstract protected  void validateSid(short id)
called by constructor, should throw runtime exception in the event of a
record passed with a differing ID.