/*
 * 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.
 */

/* $Id$ */

package org.apache.xmlgraphics.util.i18n;

import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.MissingResourceException;

/**
 * This interface must be implemented by the classes which must provide a
 * way to override the default locale. 
 *
 * @author <a href="mailto:stephane@hillion.org">Stephane Hillion</a>
 * @version $Id$
 */
public interface Localizable {
    /**
     * Provides a way to the user to specify a locale which override the
     * default one. If null is passed to this method, the used locale
     * becomes the global one. 
     * @param l The locale to set.
     */
    void setLocale(Locale l);

    /**
     * Returns the current locale or null if the locale currently used is
     * the default one.     
     */
    Locale getLocale();

    /**
     * Creates and returns a localized message, given the key of the message
     * in the resource bundle and the message parameters.
     * The messages in the resource bundle must have the syntax described in
     * the java.text.MessageFormat class documentation.
     * @param key  The key used to retreive the message from the resource
     *             bundle.
     * @param args The objects that compose the message.
     * @exception MissingResourceException if the key is not in the bundle.
     */
    String formatMessage(String key, Object[] args)
        throws MissingResourceException;
}