001    /*
002     * Copyright 2002-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
003     *
004     * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005     * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006     * You may obtain a copy of the License at
007     *
008     *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
009     *
010     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013     * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014     * limitations under the License.
015     */
016    package org.apache.commons.clazz;
017    
018    /**
019     * A clazz loader factory creates and configures clazz loaders.
020     * 
021     * @author <a href="mailto:dmitri@apache.org">Dmitri Plotnikov</a>
022     * @version $Id: ClazzLoaderFactory.java 155436 2005-02-26 13:17:48Z dirkv $
023     */
024    public interface ClazzLoaderFactory {
025    
026        /**
027         * Returns the name of the clazz model implemented by this factory.
028         * By convention, it should be a proper identifier, no dots, capitalized.
029         */
030        String getClazzModel();
031        
032        /**
033         * Allocate, configure and cache a clazz loader that uses the supplied class
034         * loader for reflection.
035         */
036        ClazzLoader getClazzLoader(ClassLoader contextClassLoader);
037         
038        /**
039         * The supplied class should be an implementation of the ClazzLoader
040         * interface.  When ClazzLoaderFactory creates a new clazz loader, it will
041         * instantiate all registered implementations and group them together.
042         */
043        void addClazzLoaderClass(Class clazzLoaderClass);
044    }