001    /*
002     * JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source.
003     * Copyright 2008, Red Hat Middleware LLC, and individual contributors
004     * as indicated by the @author tags. See the copyright.txt file in the
005     * distribution for a full listing of individual contributors. 
006     *
007     * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
008     * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
009     * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
010     * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
011     *
012     * This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
013     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
014     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
015     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
016     *
017     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
018     * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
019     * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
020     * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
021     */
022    package org.jboss.dna.graph.properties;
023    
024    import java.util.Iterator;
025    
026    /**
027     * @author Randall Hauch
028     */
029    public interface PropertyFactory {
030        /**
031         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
032         * 
033         * @param name the property name; may not be null
034         * @param values the values
035         * @return the resulting property
036         */
037        Property create( Name name,
038                         Object... values );
039    
040        /**
041         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
042         * 
043         * @param name the property name; may not be null
044         * @param values the values
045         * @return the resulting property
046         */
047        Property create( Name name,
048                         Iterable<?> values );
049    
050        /**
051         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
052         * 
053         * @param name the property name; may not be null
054         * @param values the values
055         * @return the resulting property
056         */
057        Property create( Name name,
058                         Iterator<?> values );
059    
060        /**
061         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
062         * 
063         * @param name the property name; may not be null
064         * @param desiredType the type that the objects should be converted to; if null, they will be used as is
065         * @param values the values
066         * @return the resulting property
067         */
068        Property create( Name name,
069                         PropertyType desiredType,
070                         Object... values );
071    
072        /**
073         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
074         * 
075         * @param name the property name; may not be null
076         * @param desiredType the type that the objects should be converted to; if null, they will be used as is
077         * @param values the values
078         * @return the resulting property
079         */
080        Property create( Name name,
081                         PropertyType desiredType,
082                         Iterable<?> values );
083    
084        /**
085         * Create a property with the supplied name and values
086         * 
087         * @param name the property name; may not be null
088         * @param desiredType the type that the objects should be converted to; if null, they will be used as is
089         * @param values the values
090         * @return the resulting property
091         */
092        Property create( Name name,
093                         PropertyType desiredType,
094                         Iterator<?> values );
095    
096    }