001/*
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
008 *
009 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010 *
011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015 * limitations under the License.
016 */
017package org.apache.commons.jxpath.ri.model;
018
019import java.util.Locale;
020
021import org.apache.commons.jxpath.ri.QName;
022
023/**
024 * Creates NodePointers for objects of a certain type.
025 * NodePointerFactories are ordered according to the values returned
026 * by the "getOrder" method and always queried in that order.
027 *
028 * @author Dmitri Plotnikov
029 * @version $Revision: 652845 $ $Date: 2008-05-02 19:46:46 +0200 (Fr, 02 Mai 2008) $
030 */
031public interface NodePointerFactory {
032
033    /**
034     * The factory order number determines its position between other factories.
035     * @return int order
036     */
037    int getOrder();
038
039    /**
040     * Create a NodePointer for the supplied object.  The node will represent
041     * the "root" object for a path.
042     *
043     * @param name String node name
044     * @param object child object
045     * @param locale Locale
046     * @return  null if this factory does not recognize objects of the supplied
047     * type.
048     */
049    NodePointer createNodePointer(QName name, Object object, Locale locale);
050
051    /**
052     * Create a NodePointer for the supplied child object.
053     *
054     * @param parent parent node
055     * @param name String node name
056     * @param object child object
057     * @return null if this factory does not recognize objects of the supplied
058     * type.
059     */
060    NodePointer createNodePointer(
061        NodePointer parent,
062        QName name,
063        Object object);
064}