org.metawidget.inspectionresultprocessor.iface.InspectionResultProcessor Maven / Gradle / Ivy
// Metawidget
//
// This library 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; either
// version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
//
// This library 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.
//
// You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
// License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
// Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
package org.metawidget.inspectionresultprocessor.iface;
import org.metawidget.iface.Immutable;
/**
* Common interface implemented by all InspectionResultProcessors. InspectionResultProcessors allow
* arbitrary processing of the inspection result before it is given to the WidgetBuilder.
*
* InspectionResultProcessors must be immutable (or, at least, appear that way to clients. They can
* have caches or configuration settings internally, as long as they are threadsafe). If they need
* to store state, they should use the Metawidget passed to each method.
*
* Processing an inspection result can be useful in a variety of cases. For example, you can sort
* business object properties based on a defined ordering, or choose only certain properties based
* on the UI screen being displayed. In more advanced cases, you could 'unpack' an inspection result
* that contained nested entities so that you could, say, iterate over a Collection.
*
* Note: InspectionResultProcessors are an example of the Strategy design pattern.
*
* @param
* Metawidget that supports this InspectionResultProcessor
* @author Richard Kennard
*/
public interface InspectionResultProcessor
extends Immutable {
//
// Methods
//
/**
* Process the given inspection result in context of the given Metawidget.
*
* @param inspectionResult
* the inspection result to process, as XML conforming to inspection-result-1.0.xsd.
* Never null
* @param metawidget
* the parent Metawidget. Never null. May be useful to help processing
* @param toInspect
* the Object being inspected. May be useful to help processing
* @param type
* the type being inspected. May be useful to help processing
* @param names
* the names being inspected. May be useful to help processing
* @return the processed inspection result, as XML conforming to inspection-result-1.0.xsd. Can
* be null if the InspectionResultProcessor wishes to cancel the inspection
*/
String processInspectionResult( String inspectionResult, M metawidget, Object toInspect, String type, String... names );
}