001    // Copyright 2004, 2005 The Apache Software Foundation
002    //
003    // Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
004    // you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
005    // You may obtain a copy of the License at
006    //
007    //     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
008    //
009    // Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
010    // distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
011    // WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
012    // See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
013    // limitations under the License.
014    
015    package org.apache.hivemind.service;
016    
017    import org.apache.hivemind.Location;
018    import org.apache.hivemind.internal.Module;
019    
020    /**
021     * A service which can provide an object value for the <code>indirect</code>
022     * translator.
023     *
024     * @author Howard Lewis Ship
025     */
026    public interface ObjectProvider
027    {
028        /**
029         * Invoked by the translator to provide the value.
030         * @param contributingModule the module which contributed to the locator
031         * @param propertyType the expected type of property
032         * @param locator a string that should be meaningful to this provider. It is the suffix of
033         * the original input value provided to the translator, after the selector prefix
034         * (used to choose a provider) was stripped.
035         * @param location the location of the input value (from which the locator was extracted). Used
036         * for error reporting, or to set the location of created objects.
037         */
038        public Object provideObject(
039            Module contributingModule,
040            Class propertyType,
041            String locator,
042            Location location);
043    }