trunk/reference-api/src/main/java/net/sf/taverna/t2/reference/T2ReferenceGenerator.java

/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (C) 2007 The University of Manchester   
 * 
 *  Modifications to the initial code base are copyright of their
 *  respective authors, or their employers as appropriate.
 * 
 *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 *  modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 *  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
 *  the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *    
 *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
 *  WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 *  Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *    
 *  You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 *  License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 *  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
 ******************************************************************************/
package net.sf.taverna.t2.reference;

/**
 * Provides new unique T2Reference instances. Used by and injected into the
 * various service interface implementations when registering new reference
 * sets, error documents and lists.
 * 
 * @author Tom Oinn
 * 
 */
public interface T2ReferenceGenerator {

	/**
	 * All T2Reference objects will have this namespace
	 * 
	 * @return the namespace as a string
	 */
	public String getNamespace();

	/**
	 * Create a new and otherwise unused T2Reference to a ReferenceSet
	 * 
	 * @return new T2Reference for a ReferenceSet, namespace and local parts
	 *         will be initialized and the reference is ready to use when
	 *         returned.
	 */
	public T2Reference nextReferenceSetReference();

	/**
	 * Create a new and otherwise unused T2Reference to an IdentifiedList
	 * 
	 * @param containsErrors
	 *            whether the list this reference is generated for contains
	 *            t2references with their containsErrors property set to true.
	 *            Returns true if <em>any</em> reference in the list is or
	 *            contains an error.
	 * @param listDepth
	 *            depth of the list to which this identifier will be applied
	 * @return a new T2Reference for an IdentifiedList. Namespace, type and
	 *         local parts will be initialized but depth and error content will
	 *         still be at their default values of '0' and 'false' respectively,
	 *         these will need to be re-set before the reference is viable.
	 */
	public T2Reference nextListReference(boolean containsErrors, int listDepth);

	/**
	 * Create a new and otherwise unused T2Reference to an ErrorDocument
	 * 
	 * @param depth
	 *            the depth of the error document to which this identifier will
	 *            refer
	 * @return a new T2Reference for an ErrorDocument
	 */
	public T2Reference nextErrorDocumentReference(int depth);

}