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Core Protocol Buffers library. Protocol Buffers are a way of encoding structured data in an efficient yet extensible format.
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// Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
// Copyright 2008 Google Inc.  All rights reserved.
//
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
// license that can be found in the LICENSE file or at
// https://developers.google.com/open-source/licenses/bsd

package com.google.protobuf;

/**
 * Abstract base interface for protocol-buffer-based RPC services. Services themselves are abstract
 * classes (implemented either by servers or as stubs), but they subclass this base interface. The
 * methods of this interface can be used to call the methods of the service without knowing its
 * exact type at compile time (analogous to the Message interface).
 *
 * Starting with version 2.3.0, RPC implementations should not try to build on this, but should
 * instead provide code generator plugins which generate code specific to the particular RPC
 * implementation. This way the generated code can be more appropriate for the implementation in use
 * and can avoid unnecessary layers of indirection.
 *
 * @author [email protected] Kenton Varda
 */
public interface Service {
  /** Get the {@code ServiceDescriptor} describing this service and its methods. */
  Descriptors.ServiceDescriptor getDescriptorForType();

  /**
   * Call a method of the service specified by MethodDescriptor. This is normally implemented as a
   * simple {@code switch()} that calls the standard definitions of the service's methods.
   *
   * 
Preconditions:
   *
   * 

   *   {@code method.getService() == getDescriptorForType()}
   *   
{@code request} is of the exact same class as the object returned by {@code
   *       getRequestPrototype(method)}.
   *   
{@code controller} is of the correct type for the RPC implementation being used by this
   *       Service. For stubs, the "correct type" depends on the RpcChannel which the stub is using.
   *       Server-side Service implementations are expected to accept whatever type of {@code
   *       RpcController} the server-side RPC implementation uses.
   * 
   *
   * Postconditions:
   *
   * 

   *   {@code done} will be called when the method is complete. This may be before {@code
   *       callMethod()} returns or it may be at some point in the future.
   *   
The parameter to {@code done} is the response. It must be of the exact same type as would
   *       be returned by {@code getResponsePrototype(method)}.
   *   
If the RPC failed, the parameter to {@code done} will be {@code null}. Further details
   *       about the failure can be found by querying {@code controller}.
   * 
   */
  void callMethod(
      Descriptors.MethodDescriptor method,
      RpcController controller,
      Message request,
      RpcCallback done);

  /**
   * {@code callMethod()} requires that the request passed in is of a particular subclass of {@code
   * Message}. {@code getRequestPrototype()} gets the default instances of this type for a given
   * method. You can then call {@code Message.newBuilderForType()} on this instance to construct a
   * builder to build an object which you can then pass to {@code callMethod()}.
   *
   * Example:
   *
   * 
   *   MethodDescriptor method =
   *     service.getDescriptorForType().findMethodByName("Foo");
   *   Message request =
   *     stub.getRequestPrototype(method).newBuilderForType()
   *         .mergeFrom(input).build();
   *   service.callMethod(method, request, callback);
   * 
   */
  Message getRequestPrototype(Descriptors.MethodDescriptor method);

  /**
   * Like {@code getRequestPrototype()}, but gets a prototype of the response message. {@code
   * getResponsePrototype()} is generally not needed because the {@code Service} implementation
   * constructs the response message itself, but it may be useful in some cases to know ahead of
   * time what type of object will be returned.
   */
  Message getResponsePrototype(Descriptors.MethodDescriptor method);
}