isMultiStatus

isMultiStatus is a method defined in the IStatus interface of the Eclipse platform. It indicates whether a given status object represents a collection of multiple statuses (a multi-status) rather than a single, standalone status. The method returns a boolean: true if the status is a MultiStatus, false for a simple, leaf status.

In practice, isMultiStatus is used to distinguish between single error or warning messages and composites that aggregate several issues. When isMultiStatus returns true, the status is expected to provide its component statuses through the getChildren() method, which returns an array of IStatus describing each constituent issue. This enables callers to iterate over the individual statuses and handle or display them in a structured way.

The design pattern behind isMultiStatus centers on the MultiStatus class, a concrete implementation of IStatus that can hold multiple child statuses. A normal (non-multi) Status or an error/warning typically does not have children and will return false for isMultiStatus. However, a MultiStatus can itself contain child statuses that are simple or further multi-statuses, allowing for nested structures.

Use cases include aggregating results from multiple resources or steps in a operation, where reporting all failures collectively is more informative than reporting a single error. Important considerations include checking isMultiStatus before calling getChildren, and handling the possibility of empty or deeply nested child structures.

See also: IStatus, MultiStatus, Status.