org.hamcrest.Matcher Maven / Gradle / Ivy
/* Copyright (c) 2000-2006 hamcrest.org
*/
package org.hamcrest;
/**
* A matcher over acceptable values.
* A matcher is able to describe itself to give feedback when it fails.
*
* Matcher implementations should NOT directly implement this interface.
* Instead, extend the {@link BaseMatcher} abstract class,
* which will ensure that the Matcher API can grow to support
* new features and remain compatible with all Matcher implementations.
*
* For easy access to common Matcher implementations, use the static factory
* methods in {@link CoreMatchers}.
*
* @see CoreMatchers
* @see BaseMatcher
*/
@SuppressWarnings({"unused", "UnusedDeclaration"})
public interface Matcher extends SelfDescribing {
/**
* Evaluates the matcher for argument item.
*
* This method matches against Object, instead of the generic type T. This is
* because the caller of the Matcher does not know at runtime what the type is
* (because of type erasure with Java generics). It is down to the implementations
* to check the correct type.
*
* @param item the object against which the matcher is evaluated.
* @return true if item matches, otherwise false.
*
* @see BaseMatcher
*/
boolean matches(Object item);
/**
* This method simply acts a friendly reminder not to implement Matcher directly and
* instead extend BaseMatcher. It's easy to ignore JavaDoc, but a bit harder to ignore
* compile errors .
*
* @see Matcher for reasons why.
* @see BaseMatcher
*/
void _dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_();
}