/*
 * Copyright (C) 2010 Google Inc.
 *
 * Licensed 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 com.google.inject.spi;

import com.google.inject.Binding;
import com.google.inject.Provider;

/**
 * A Provider that is part of an extension which supports a custom BindingTargetVisitor.
 *
 * <p>When an extension binds a provider instance, the provider can implement this interface to
 * allow users using the {@link Binding#acceptTargetVisitor(BindingTargetVisitor)} method to visit a
 * custom visitor designed for that extension. A typical implementation within the extension would
 * look like
 *
 * <pre>
 * <V, B> V acceptExtensionVisitor(BindingTargetVisitor<B, V> visitor, ProviderInstanceBinding<? extends B> binding) {
 *   if(visitor instanceof MyCustomExtensionVisitor) {
 *     return ((MyCustomExtensionVisitor<B, V>)visitor).visitCustomExtension(customProperties, binding);
 *   } else {
 *     return visitor.visit(binding);
 *   }
 * }</pre>
 *
 * 'MyCustomExtensionVisitor' in the example above would be an interface the extension provides that
 * users can implement in order to be notified of custom extension information. These visitor
 * interfaces must extend from BindingTargetVisitor.
 *
 * @since 3.0
 * @author sameb@google.com (Sam Berlin)
 */
public interface ProviderWithExtensionVisitor<T> extends Provider<T> {

  /**
   * Instructs the extension determine if the visitor is an instance of a custom extension visitor,
   * and if so, visit it using that method. If the visitor is not an instance of the custom
   * extension visitor, this method <b>MUST</b> call visitor.visit(binding).
   *
   * <p>Due to issues with generics, the type parameters of this method do not relate to the type of
   * the provider. In practice, the 'B' type will always be a supertype of 'T'.
   */
  <B, V> V acceptExtensionVisitor(
      BindingTargetVisitor<B, V> visitor, ProviderInstanceBinding<? extends B> binding);
}