/*
 *    GeoTools - The Open Source Java GIS Toolkit
 *    http://geotools.org
 *
 *    (C) 2002-2008, Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)
 *
 *    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 *    modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 *    License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
 *    version 2.1 of the License.
 *
 *    This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 *    Lesser General Public License for more details.
 */
package org.geotools.xml;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;

import org.xml.sax.ContentHandler;

/**
 * Interface for objects which need to take over parsing control from the main 
 * parsing driver.
 * <p>
 * An example of such a case is when a schema dynamically imports content from 
 * other schemas. 
 * </p>
 * <p>
 * Instances of these objects are declared in the {@link Configuration#getContext()}. Example:
 * <pre>
 * MyParserDelegate delegate = new MyParserDelegate();
 * Configuration configuration = ...;
 * 
 * configuration.getContext().registerComponentInstance( delegate );
 * </pre>
 * </p>
 * @author Justin Deoliveira, OpenGEO
 *
 *
 *
 * @source $URL$
 */
public interface ParserDelegate extends ContentHandler {

    /**
     * Determines if this delegate can handle the specified element name.
     * <p>
     * A common check in this method would be to check the namespace of the element.
     * </p>
     * @param elementName The name of the element to potentially handle.
     * 
     * @return True if this delegate handles elements of the specified name and should
     * take over parsing.
     */
    boolean canHandle( QName elementName );
    
    /**
     * Gets the final parsed object from the delegate.
     * <p>
     * This method is called after parsing control returns to the main parsing 
     * driver.
     * </p> 
     */
    Object getParsedObject();
}