This class is a generic, opaque representation of the parameters used by some cryptographic algorithm. You can create an instance of the class with one of the static getInstance( ) factory methods, specifying the desired algorithm and, optionally, the desired provider. The default "SUN" provider supports the "DSA" algorithm. The "SunJCE" provider shipped with the JCE supports "DES", "DESede", "PBE", "Blowfish", and "DiffieHellman". Once you have obtained an AlgorithmParameters object, initialize it by passing an algorithm-specific java.security.spec.AlgorithmParameterSpec object or the encoded parameter values as a byte array to the init( ) method. You can also create an AlgorithmParameters object with an AlgorithmParameterGenerator. getEncoded( ) returns the initialized algorithm parameters as a byte array, using either the algorithm-specific default encoding or the named encoding format you specified.

public class AlgorithmParameters {
// Protected Constructors
     protected AlgorithmParameters(AlgorithmParametersSpi paramSpi, Provider 
provider, String algorithm);  
// Public Class Methods
     public static AlgorithmParameters getInstance(String algorithm) 
throws NoSuchAlgorithmException;  
     public static AlgorithmParameters getInstance(String algorithm, 
String provider) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchProviderException;  
1.4  public static AlgorithmParameters getInstance(String algorithm, Provider provider) 
throws NoSuchAlgorithmException;  
// Public Instance Methods
     public final String getAlgorithm( );  
     public final byte[ ] getEncoded( ) throws java.io.IOException;  
     public final byte[ ] getEncoded(String format) throws java.io.IOException;  
     public final <T extends java.security.spec.AlgorithmParameterSpec> 
T getParameterSpec(Class<T> paramSpec) throws java.security.spec.
InvalidParameterSpecException;  
     public final Provider getProvider( );  
     public final void init(java.security.spec.AlgorithmParameterSpec paramSpec) 
throws java.security.spec.InvalidParameterSpecException;  
     public final void init(byte[ ] params) throws java.io.IOException;  
     public final void init(byte[ ] params, String format) 
throws java.io.IOException;  
// Public Methods Overriding Object
     public final String toString( );  
}

Passed To

javax.crypto.Cipher.init( ), javax.crypto.CipherSpi.engineInit( ), javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo( ), javax.crypto.ExemptionMechanism.init( ), javax.crypto.ExemptionMechanismSpi.engineInit( )

Returned By

AlgorithmParameterGenerator.generateParameters( ), AlgorithmParameterGeneratorSpi.engineGenerateParameters( ), Signature.getParameters( ), SignatureSpi.engineGetParameters( ), javax.crypto.Cipher.getParameters( ), javax.crypto.CipherSpi.engineGetParameters( ), javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo.getAlgParameters( )