001    // Copyright 2004, 2005 The Apache Software Foundation
002    //
003    // Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
004    // you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
005    // You may obtain a copy of the License at
006    //
007    //     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
008    //
009    // Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
010    // distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
011    // WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
012    // See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
013    // limitations under the License.
014    
015    package org.apache.hivemind.internal;
016    
017    import org.apache.hivemind.definition.ConfigurationPointDefinition;
018    
019    
020    /**
021     * An extension point that provides configuration data in the form of a list of elements.
022     * 
023     * @author Howard Lewis Ship
024     */
025    public interface ConfigurationPoint extends ExtensionPoint
026    {
027        /**
028         * Returns the container that holds the configuration data. May
029         * return a proxy to the actual data (which is constructed only as needed), but user code
030         * shouldn't care about that.
031         */
032        public Object getConfiguration();
033        
034        /**
035         * @return  the type of the container that holds the configuration data
036         */
037        public Class getConfigurationType();
038    
039        public ConfigurationPointDefinition getConfigurationPointDefinition();
040    }