org.apache.cocoon.Modifiable Maven / Gradle / Ivy
/*
* Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
*
* 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.apache.cocoon;
/**
* This interface is implemented by those classes that change
* their behavior/results over time (non-ergodic).
*
* @version $Id: Modifiable.java 359086 2005-12-26 19:03:29Z cziegeler $
*/
public interface Modifiable {
/**
* Queries the class to estimate its ergodic period termination.
*
* This method is called to ensure the validity of a cached product. It
* is the class responsibility to provide the fastest possible
* implementation of this method or, whether this is not possible and the
* costs of the change evaluation is comparable to the production costs,
* to return true directly with no further delay, thus reducing
* the evaluation overhead to a minimum.
*
* @return true if the class ergodic period is over and the class
* would behave differently if processed again, false if the
* resource is still ergodic so that it doesn't require
* reprocessing.
*/
boolean modifiedSince( long date );
}