001    package org.apache.commons.betwixt.registry;
002    
003    /*
004     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
005     * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
006     * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
007     * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
008     * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
009     * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
010     * 
011     *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
012     * 
013     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
014     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
015     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
016     * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
017     * limitations under the License.
018     */ 
019    
020    import org.apache.commons.betwixt.XMLBeanInfo;
021    
022    /** <p>Plug in registry for <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>'s.</p>
023      * 
024      * <p>This decouples the implementation of the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> cache.
025      * Users can plug in the standard implementations found 
026      * in this package to switch caching on and off.
027      * Alternatively, they can plug-in an exotic cache of their own devising.</p>
028      *
029      * <p>Users can also prime a cache with <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>
030      * classes created programmatically.</p>
031      *
032      * <p>To find a <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> for a class,
033      * <code>XMLIntrospector</code> checks in the registry first 
034      * before starting introspection.
035      * If the registry returns an <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>, then that's used.
036      * Otherwise, the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> will be found by standard introspection
037      * and then {@link #put} will be called so that the registry 
038      * can cache - if it wished - the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>. 
039      * </p>
040      *
041      * @author <a href="mailto:rdonkin@apache.org">Robert Burrell Donkin</a>
042      * @version $Id: XMLBeanInfoRegistry.java 438373 2006-08-30 05:17:21Z bayard $
043      */
044    public interface XMLBeanInfoRegistry {
045        
046        /** 
047          * Get the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> for the given class.
048          *
049          * @param forThisClass get <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> for this class
050          *
051          * @return <code>null</code> if fresh introspection should be used 
052          * to find the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>
053          */
054        public XMLBeanInfo get(Class forThisClass);
055        
056        /**
057          * Associate a class with it's <code>XMLBeanInfo</code>.
058          *
059          * @param forThisClass the class to associate with the given bean info
060          * @param beanInfo the <code>XMLBeanInfo</code> to use for the given class
061          */
062        public void put(Class forThisClass, XMLBeanInfo beanInfo);
063        
064        /**
065         * Flush or resets the current registry to it's original state.
066         * It has to be implemented, however could be an empty implementation
067         */
068        public void flush();
069    }