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/**
 *  Copyright (c) 2011, The Staccato-Commons Team
 *
 *  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; version 3 of the License.
 *
 *  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.
 */

package net.sf.staccatocommons.lang.builder;

/**
 * 
 * @author flbulgarelli
 * 
 * @param 
 *          The type of built object
 */
public interface Builder {

  /**
   * 
   * Returns the built object.
   * 
   * Builders are not meant to be used more than once. So this method can only
   * be invoked successfully one time. Subsequent invocations after a successful
   * return will throw an {@link BuilderAlreadyUsedException}. However,
   * implementors may relax this, and be reusable, that is being able to be used
   * more than once; such implementors should document that feature.
   * 

   * Builders may impose restriction to the state of the object under
   * construction. If such constraints are not met while invoking this method, a
   * {@link ObjectUnderConstructionException} exception must be thrown.
   * 
   * 
   * @return The built object.
   * @throws ObjectUnderConstructionException
   *           If the object building process has not finished yet
   * @throws BuilderAlreadyUsedException
   *           If the building process has finished, but this method has already
   *           being invoked without throwing an exception.
   */
  T build() throws ObjectUnderConstructionException, BuilderAlreadyUsedException;

}