src/org/jsecurity/authz/permission/PermissionResolver.java

/*
 * Copyright 2005-2008 Jeremy Haile
 *
 * 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.jsecurity.authz.permission;

import org.jsecurity.authz.Permission;

/**
 * <p>A PermisisonResolver resolves a String value and converts it into a
 * {@link org.jsecurity.authz.Permission} instance.
 *
 * <p>The default {@link org.jsecurity.authz.permission.WildcardPermissionResolver} should be
 * suitable for most purposes, which constructs {@link org.jsecurity.authz.permission.WildcardPermission} objects.
 * However, any resolver may be configured if an application wishes to use different
 * {@link org.jsecurity.authz.Permission} implementations.</p>
 *
 * <p>A <tt>PermissionResolver</tt> is used by many JSecurity components such as annotations, property file
 * configuration, URL configuration, etc.  It is useful whenever a String representation of a permission is specified
 * and that String needs to be converted to a Permission instance before executing a security check.</p>
 *
 * @author Jeremy Haile
 * @since 0.9
 */
public interface PermissionResolver {

    /**
     * Resolves a Permission based on the given String representation.
     * @param permissionString the String representation of a permission.
     * @return A Permission object that can be used internally to determine a subject's permissions.
     * @throws InvalidPermissionStringException if the permission string is not valid for this resolver.
     */
    Permission resolvePermission( String permissionString );

}