/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.apache.commons.chain2;

import java.util.Map;

import org.apache.commons.chain2.Processing;

/**
 * <p>A {@link Command} encapsulates a unit of processing work to be
 * performed, whose purpose is to examine and/or modify the state of a
 * transaction that is represented by a {@link Context}.  Individual
 * {@link Command}s can be assembled into a {@link Chain}, which allows
 * them to either complete the required processing or delegate further
 * processing to the next {@link Command} in the {@link Chain}.</p>
 *
 * <p>{@link Command} implementations should be designed in a thread-safe
 * manner, suitable for inclusion in multiple {@link Chain}s that might be
 * processed by different threads simultaneously.  In general, this implies
 * that {@link Command} classes should not maintain state information in
 * instance variables.  Instead, state information should be maintained via
 * suitable modifications to the attributes of the {@link Context} that is
 * passed to the <code>execute()</code> command.</p>
 *
 * <p>{@link Command} implementations typically retrieve and store state
 * information in the {@link Context} instance that is passed as a parameter
 * to the <code>execute()</code> method, using particular keys into the
 * <code>Map</code> that can be acquired via
 * <code>Context.getAttributes()</code>.  To improve interoperability of
 * {@link Command} implementations, a useful design pattern is to expose the
 * key values used as JavaBeans properties of the {@link Command}
 * implementation class itself.  For example, a {@link Command} that requires
 * an input and an output key might implement the following properties:</p>
 *
 * <pre>
 *   private String inputKey = "input";
 *   public String getInputKey() {
 *     return (this.inputKey);
 *   }
 *   public void setInputKey(String inputKey) {
 *     this.inputKey = inputKey;
 *   }
 *
 *   private String outputKey = "output";
 *   public String getOutputKey() {
 *     return (this.outputKey);
 *   }
 *   public void setOutputKey(String outputKey) {
 *     this.outputKey = outputKey;
 *   }
 * </pre>
 *
 * <p>And the operation of accessing the "input" information in the context
 * would be executed by calling:</p>
 *
 * <pre>
 *   String input = (String) context.get(getInputKey());
 * </pre>
 *
 * <p>instead of hard coding the attribute name.  The use of the "Key"
 * suffix on such property names is a useful convention to identify properties
 * being used in this fashion, as opposed to JavaBeans properties that simply
 * configure the internal operation of this {@link Command}.</p>
 *
 * @param <K> the type of keys maintained by the context associated with this command
 * @param <V> the type of mapped values
 * @param <C> Type of the context associated with this command
 *
 * @version $Id$
 */
public interface Command<K, V, C extends Map<K, V>> {

    /**
     * Execute a unit of processing work to be performed. 
     * <p>
     * A command may either complete the required processing and return 
     * finished, or delegate remaining processing to the subsequent command 
     * in the enclosing {@link Chain} by returning continue.
     *
     * @param context The {@link Context} to be processed by this
     *  {@link Command}
     *
     * @throws ChainException general purpose exception return
     *  to indicate abnormal termination
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if <code>context</code>
     *  is <code>null</code>
     *
     * @return {@link Processing#FINISHED} if the processing of this contex
     *  has been completed. Returns {@link Processing#CONTINUE} if the processing
     *  of this context should be delegated to a subsequent command in an 
     *  enclosing chain.
     */
    Processing execute(C context);

}