/*
* 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.logging.log4j.core.util;
/**
* A type of builder that can be used to configure and create a instances using a Java DSL instead of
* through a configuration file. These builders are primarily useful for internal code and unit tests, but they can
* technically be used as a verbose alternative to configuration files.
*
* <p>
* When creating <em>plugin</em> builders, it is customary to create the builder class as a public static inner class
* called {@code Builder}. For instance, the builder class for
* {@link org.apache.logging.log4j.core.layout.PatternLayout PatternLayout} would be
* {@code PatternLayout.Builder}.
* </p>
*
* @param <T> This builder creates instances of this class.
*/
public interface Builder<T> {
/**
* Builds the object after all configuration has been set. This will use default values for any
* unspecified attributes for the object.
*
* @return the configured instance.
* @throws org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.ConfigurationException if there was an error building the
* object.
*/
T build();
}