xbean-classloader/src/main/java/org/apache/xbean/classloader/ResourceFinder.java

/**
 *
 * Copyright 2005 The Apache Software Foundation
 *
 *  Licensed 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.xbean.classloader;

import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Enumeration;

/**
 * Abstraction of resource searching policy. Given resource name, the resource
 * finder performs implementation-specific lookup, and, if it is able to locate
 * the resource, returns the {@link AbstractResourceHandle handle(s)} or URL(s) of it.
 *
 * @version $Rev$ $Date: 2006-06-01 06:35:48 +0200 (Thu, 01 Jun 2006) $
 */
public interface ResourceFinder {
    /**
     * Find the resource by name and return URL of it if found.
     *
     * @param name the resource name
     * @return resource URL or null if resource was not found
     */
    public URL findResource(String name);

    /**
     * Find all resources with given name and return enumeration of their URLs.
     *
     * @param name the resource name
     * @return enumeration of resource URLs (possibly empty).
     */
    public Enumeration findResources(String name);

    /**
     * Get the resource by name and, if found, open connection to it and return
     * the {@link AbstractResourceHandle handle} of it.
     *
     * @param name the resource name
     * @return resource handle or null if resource was not found
     */
    public ResourceHandle getResource(String name);

}