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Groovy: A powerful, dynamic language for the JVM
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/*
 * Copyright 2003-2007 the original author or authors.
 *
 * 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 groovy.lang;

import java.lang.reflect.Method;

/**
 * An interface that defines methods that implementors of mutable Meta classes should specifiy. It provides operations to perform mutations
 * on the MetaClass instance.
 *
 * Whether a MetaClass allows mutation is up to the MetaClass itself and considerations of Thread safety
 * need to be taken into account when making a MetaClass mutable
 *
 * The default implementation allows mutation of MetaClass instances before initialisation (before the initialize() method is called)
 * but not after, thus ensuring Thread safety once a MetaClass has been constructed and placed in the registry
 *
 *
 * @see MetaClassImpl
 * @see MetaClass
 *
 * @author Graeme Rocher
 * @since 1.1
 *
 *        
 *        Created: Feb 24, 2007
 *        Time: 4:05:44 PM
 */
public interface MutableMetaClass extends MetaClass {

    /**
     * Return whether the MetaClass has been modified or not
     * @return True if it has
     */
    boolean isModified();

    /**
     * adds a new instance method to this MetaClass. Instance
     * methods are able to overwrite the original methods of the
     * class. Calling this method should not be done after
     * initlise was called.
     *
     * @param method the method to be added
     */
     void addNewInstanceMethod(Method method);

    /**
     * adds a new static method to this MetaClass. This is only
     * possible as long as initilise was not called.
     *
     * @param method the method to be added
     */
     void addNewStaticMethod(Method method);

    /**
     * Adds a new MetaMethod to the MetaClass
     *
     * @param metaMethod The MetaMethod to add
     */
    void addMetaMethod(MetaMethod metaMethod);

    /**
     * Adds a new MetaBeanProperty to the MetaClass
     *
     * @param metaBeanProperty The MetaBeanProperty instance
     */
    void addMetaBeanProperty(MetaBeanProperty metaBeanProperty);
    
    // TODO: Add methods like addMetaConstructor, addMetaAttribute, addMetaAnnotation etc.
}