public Class X509CertSelector

When first constructed, an X509CertSelector has no criteria enabled and each of the get methods return a default value (null, or -1 for the getBasicConstraints method). Therefore, the match method would return true for any X509Certificate. Typically, several criteria are enabled (by calling setIssuer(X500Principal) or setKeyUsage, for instance) and then the X509CertSelector is passed to CertStore.getCertificates or some similar method.

Several criteria can be enabled (by calling setIssuer(X500Principal) and setSerialNumber, for example) such that the match method usually uniquely matches a single X509Certificate. We say usually, since it is possible for two issuing CAs to have the same distinguished name and each issue a certificate with the same serial number. Other unique combinations include the issuer, subject, subjectKeyIdentifier and/or the subjectPublicKey criteria.

Please refer to RFC 5280: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile for definitions of the X.509 certificate extensions mentioned below.

Concurrent Access

Unless otherwise specified, the methods defined in this class are not thread-safe. Multiple threads that need to access a single object concurrently should synchronize amongst themselves and provide the necessary locking. Multiple threads each manipulating separate objects need not synchronize.