/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2010, Red Hat Inc. or third-party contributors as
 * indicated by the @author tags or express copyright attribution
 * statements applied by the authors.  All third-party contributions are
 * distributed under license by Red Hat Inc.
 *
 * This copyrighted material is made available to anyone wishing to use, modify,
 * copy, or redistribute it subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 * This program 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.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this distribution; if not, write to:
 * Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 * 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
 * Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
 */
package org.hibernate.type;

import java.util.Comparator;

import org.hibernate.engine.spi.SessionImplementor;

/**
 * Additional contract for types which may be used to version (and optimistic lock) data.
 *
 * @author Gavin King
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface VersionType<T> extends Type {
	/**
	 * Generate an initial version.
	 *
	 * @param session The session from which this request originates.
	 * @return an instance of the type
	 */
	public T seed(SessionImplementor session);

	/**
	 * Increment the version.
	 *
	 * @param session The session from which this request originates.
	 * @param current the current version
	 * @return an instance of the type
	 */
	public T next(T current, SessionImplementor session);

	/**
	 * Get a comparator for version values.
	 *
	 * @return The comparator to use to compare different version values.
	 */
	public Comparator<T> getComparator();
}