tiles-core/src/main/java/org/apache/tiles/evaluator/AttributeEvaluator.java

/*
 * $Id$
 *
 * 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.tiles.evaluator;

import org.apache.tiles.Attribute;
import org.apache.tiles.request.Request;

/**
 * It represents an object that resolves a string to return an object.
 *
 * @version $Rev$ $Date$
 * @since 2.1.0
 */
public interface AttributeEvaluator {

    /**
     * Evaluates an expression.
     *
     * @param expression The expression to evaluate.
     * @param request The request object.
     * @return The evaluated object.
     * @since 2.1.0
     */
    Object evaluate(String expression, Request request);

    /**
     * Evaluates an attribute value.
     *
     * @param attribute The attribute to evaluate.
     * @param request The request object.
     * @return The evaluated object.
     * @since 2.1.0
     */
    Object evaluate(Attribute attribute, Request request);
}