/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.apache.cocoon.forms;

import org.apache.cocoon.forms.formmodel.Form;
import org.apache.cocoon.forms.formmodel.FormDefinition;
import org.apache.excalibur.source.Source;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;

/**
 * Work interface for the component that can create {@link Form}s.
 *
 * @version $Id$
 */
public interface FormManager {

    String ROLE = FormManager.class.getName();

    /**
     * Creates a form instance based on the XML form definition
     * that can be retrieved from the specified URI.
     *
     * <p>The form definition will be cached, so that future form instances
     * can be created quickly.
     */
    Form createForm(String uri) throws Exception;

    /**
     * Creates a form instance based on the XML form definition
     * that can be read from the specified source.
     *
     * <p>To avoid having to resolve the Source object yourself,
     * use the {@link #createForm(String)} method.
     *
     * <p>The form definition will be cached, so that future form instances
     * can be created quickly.
     */
    Form createForm(Source source) throws Exception;

    /**
     * Creates a form instance based on the XML form definition that is
     * supplied as a DOM tree.
     *
     * <p>The specified element must be a fd:form element.
     *
     * <p>The Form Definition will <b>not</b> be cached.
     */
    Form createForm(Element formElement) throws Exception;

    /**
     * Creates a form definition based on the XML form definition
     * that can be retrieved from the specified URI.
     *
     * <p>The root element must be a <fd:form> element.
     *
     * <p>The form definition will be cached, so that future form instances
     * can be created quickly.
     */
    FormDefinition createFormDefinition(String uri) throws Exception;

    /**
     * Creates a form definition based on the XML form definition
     * that can be retrieved from the specified source.
     *
     * <p>To avoid having to resolve the Source object yourself,
     * use the {@link #createFormDefinition(String)} method.
     *
     * <p>The root element must be a <fd:form> element.
     *
     * <p>The form definition will be cached, so that future form instances
     * can be created quickly.
     */
    FormDefinition createFormDefinition(Source source) throws Exception;

    /**
     * Creates a form definition based on the XML form definition that is
     * supplied as a DOM tree.
     *
     * <p>The specified element must be a <fd:form> element.
     *
     * <p>The Form Definition will <b>not</b> be cached.
     */
    FormDefinition createFormDefinition(Element formElement) throws Exception;
}