/**
* AnalyzerBeans
* Copyright (C) 2014 Neopost - Customer Information Management
*
* 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.eobjects.analyzer.reference;
import org.eobjects.analyzer.beans.api.Close;
import org.eobjects.analyzer.beans.api.Initialize;
/**
* A string pattern defines a pattern to which you can match strings to see if
* they share a similar pattern. Examples of string patterns are:
*
* <ul>
* <li>The pattern "Aaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaa" which is a typical firstname and lastname
* pattern.</li>
* <li>The pattern ".*@.*" which is a simple way to identify strings with an
* @-sign in them (potential email).</li>
* </ul>
*
* A string pattern can have methods annotated with @Initialize and @Close.
* These will be called before and after a job is executed where the given
* string pattern is used.
*
* Note: String patterns should be thread-safe!! Make sure to make sensible use
* of synchronized blocks if there are race conditions in the string pattern
* implementation.
*
* @see Initialize
* @see Close
*
*
*/
public interface StringPattern extends ReferenceData {
public boolean matches(String string);
}