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.lang3.text;
018
019import java.text.Format;
020import java.util.Locale;
021
022/**
023 * Format factory.
024 * 
025 * @since 2.4
026 * @version $Id: FormatFactory.java 1088899 2011-04-05 05:31:27Z bayard $
027 */
028public interface FormatFactory {
029
030    /**
031     * Create or retrieve a format instance.
032     *
033     * @param name The format type name
034     * @param arguments Arguments used to create the format instance. This allows the
035     *                  <code>FormatFactory</code> to implement the "format style"
036     *                  concept from <code>java.text.MessageFormat</code>.
037     * @param locale The locale, may be null
038     * @return The format instance
039     */
040    Format getFormat(String name, String arguments, Locale locale);
041
042}