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SciJava Common is a shared library for SciJava software. It provides a plugin framework, with an extensible mechanism for service discovery, backed by its own annotation processor, so that plugins can be loaded dynamically. It is used by downstream projects in the SciJava ecosystem, such as ImageJ and SCIFIO.

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/*
 * #%L
 * SciJava Common shared library for SciJava software.
 * %%
 * Copyright (C) 2009 - 2017 Board of Regents of the University of
 * Wisconsin-Madison, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Max Planck
 * Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, University of
 * Konstanz, and KNIME GmbH.
 * %%
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
 * 
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
 *    this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
 *    this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
 *    and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
 * AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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 * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
 * LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
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package org.scijava.io.location;

import java.net.URI;

import org.scijava.io.handle.DataHandle;

/**
 * A location is a data descriptor, such as a file on disk, a remote
 * URL, or a database connection.
 * 
 * Analogous to a uniform
 * resource identifier ({@link URI}), a location identifies where
 * the data resides, without necessarily specifying how to access that
 * data. The {@link DataHandle} interface defines a plugin that knows how to
 * read and/or write bytes for a particular kind of location.
 * 
 * 
 * @author Curtis Rueden
 * @author Gabriel Einsdorf
 */
public interface Location {

	/**
	 * Gets the location expressed as a {@link URI}, or null if the location
	 * cannot be expressed as such.
	 */
	default URI getURI() {
		return null;
	}

	/**
	 * Gets a (typically short) name expressing this location. This string is not
	 * intended to unambiguously identify the location, but rather act as a
	 * friendly, human-readable name. The precise behavior will depend on the
	 * implementation, but as an example, a file-based location could return the
	 * name of the associated file without its full path.
	 *
	 * @return The name, or an empty string if no name is available.
	 */
	default String getName() {
		return defaultName();
	}

	/**
	 * Gets the default name used when no explicit name is assigned.
	 * 
	 * Note: this is mostly intended for debugging, since most kinds of
	 * {@code Location} will assign some non-default name. But in cases where that
	 * does not occur, this value can be useful to detect the situation.
	 * 
	 * 
	 * @return The default name string.
	 */
	default String defaultName() {
		return "Location.defaultName";
	}
}