The following example component declares a inner Context interface containing three operations - the first operation returns an instance of java.awt.Color, the second operation returns a primitive int value and the third a String value. The last example includes a default value parameter.

import java.awt.Color;

public class DemoComponent
{
    public interface Context
    {
        Color getColor();
        int getLength();
        String getName( String defaultName );
    }

    public DemoComponent( Context context )
    {
        final Color color = context.getColor();
        final int length = context.getLength();
        final String name = context.getName( "widget" );

        ...
    }
}

Context declaration relies upon a set of patterns that are applied to operation signatures. First and formost is the usage of the bean-style getXxxx() naming convention wherein "get" is a standard prefix and the remainder of the method name is used to establish a unique context entry key. A second pattern is used to determine if the context operation is optional or not. If the operation declares a single parameter then the context entry is considered optional.

Two constraints exist concerning context operation signatures:

• An operations may not declare a throws clause.
• If an operation declares a default parameter the type of the parameter must be type assignable to the operations return type.