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     */
017    package org.apache.commons.lang.text;
018    
019    import java.text.Format;
020    import java.util.Locale;
021    
022    /**
023     * Format factory.
024     * 
025     * @author Apache Software Foundation
026     * @since 2.4
027     * @version $Id: FormatFactory.java 905636 2010-02-02 14:03:32Z niallp $
028     */
029    public interface FormatFactory {
030    
031        /**
032         * Create or retrieve a format instance.
033         *
034         * @param name The format type name
035         * @param arguments Arguments used to create the format instance. This allows the
036         *                  <code>FormatFactory</code> to implement the "format style"
037         *                  concept from <code>java.text.MessageFormat</code>.
038         * @param locale The locale, may be null
039         * @return The format instance
040         */
041        Format getFormat(String name, String arguments, Locale locale);
042    
043    }