/*
* 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.filter.expression;
import org.geotools.factory.Hints;
import org.geotools.factory.Hints.Key;
/**
* Factory used to create instances of {@link PropertyAccessor}
*
* @author Justin Deoliveira, The Open Planning Project
*
*
*
* @source $URL$
*/
public interface PropertyAccessorFactory {
/**
* {@link Hints} key used to pass namespace context to
* {@link #createPropertyAccessor(Class, String, Class, Hints)} in the form of a
* {@link NamespaceSupport} instance with the prefix/namespaceURI mappings
*/
public static final Key NAMESPACE_CONTEXT = new Hints.Key(org.xml.sax.helpers.NamespaceSupport.class);
/**
* Creates a property accessor for a particular class.
*
* @param type The type of object to be accessed.
* @param xpath The xpath expression to evaluate.
* @param target The kind of result we are expecting (ie Geometry)
* @param hints Hints to be used when creatign the accessor.
*
* @return The property accessor, or <code>null</code> if this factory cannot create
* an accessor for the specified type.
*/
PropertyAccessor createPropertyAccessor(Class<?> type, String xpath, Class<?> target, Hints hints);
}