/**
* The contents of this file are subject to the license and copyright
* detailed in the LICENSE and NOTICE files at the root of the source
* tree and available online at
*
* http://www.dspace.org/license/
*/
package org.dspace.app.xmlui.wing.element;
import org.dspace.app.xmlui.wing.WingException;
import org.xml.sax.Attributes;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
/**
* This is an interface to represent all WingElements that can be merged.
*
* @author Scott Phillips
*/
public interface WingMergeableElement extends WingElement
{
/**
* Determine if the given SAX startElement event is equivalent to this
* WingElement.
*
* @param namespace
* The element's name space
* @param localName
* The local, unqualified, name for this element
* @param qName
* The qualified name for this element
* @param attributes
* The element's attributes
* @return True if this WingElement is equivalent to the given SAX Event.
*/
public boolean mergeEqual(String namespace, String localName, String qName,
Attributes attributes) throws SAXException, WingException;
/**
* Merge the given SAX startElement event into this element's child. If this
* SAX event matches a child element of this element then it should be
* removed from the internal book keep of this element and returned.
* typically this is accomplished by looping through all children elements
* and returned the first one that returns true for the mergeEqual method.
*
* @param namespace
* The element's name space
* @param localName
* The local, unqualified, name for this element *
* @param qName
* The qualified name for this element
* @param attributes
* The element's attributes
* @return The child element
*/
public WingMergeableElement mergeChild(String namespace, String localName,
String qName, Attributes attributes) throws SAXException,
WingException;
/**
* Inform this element that it is being merged with an existing element.
* Practically this means that when this method is being transformed to SAX it
* should assume that the element's SAX events have all ready been sent. In
* this case the element would only need to transform to SAX the children of
* this element.
*
* Further more if the element needs to add any attributes to the SAX
* startElement event it may modify the attributes object passed to make
* changes.
*
* @return The attributes for this merged element
*/
public Attributes merge(Attributes attributes) throws SAXException,
WingException;
}