/* $Id: CodeGenerator.java 17868 2010-01-12 20:47:51Z linus $
 *****************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2009 Contributors - see below
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
 *    tfmorris
 *****************************************************************************
 *
 * Some portions of this file was previously release using the BSD License:
 */

// Copyright (c) 2005-2008 The Regents of the University of California. All
// Rights Reserved. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
// software and its documentation without fee, and without a written
// agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice
// and this paragraph appear in all copies.  This software program and
// documentation are copyrighted by The Regents of the University of
// California. The software program and documentation are supplied "AS
// IS", without any accompanying services from The Regents. The Regents
// does not warrant that the operation of the program will be
// uninterrupted or error-free. The end-user understands that the program
// was developed for research purposes and is advised not to rely
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// UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT,
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package org.argouml.uml.generator;

import java.util.Collection;

/**
 * Defines the methods to generate source code from the model. Each class
 * providing code generation functionality must implement this to be recognized
 * by ArgoUML as a code generator.
 * <p>
 * TODO: A GUI-independent mechanism to pass settings to the code generator is
 * needed similar to what we have for reverse engineering.  See
 * {@link org.argouml.uml.reveng.ImportInterface#getImportSettings()} and
 * {@link org.argouml.uml.reveng.SettingsTypes}
 * 
 * @since 0.20 when it replaced the FileGenerator interface.
 */
public interface CodeGenerator {
    
    /**
     * The file separator for this operating system.
     */
    String FILE_SEPARATOR = System.getProperty("file.separator");

    /**
     * Generate code for the specified classifiers. If generation of
     * dependencies is requested, then every file the specified elements
     * depends on is generated too (e.g. if the class MyClass has an attribute
     * of type OtherClass, then files for OtherClass are generated too).
     *
     * @param elements the UML model elements to generate code for.
     * @param deps Recursively generate dependency files too.
     * @return A collection of {@link SourceUnit} objects. The collection
     *         may be empty if no file is generated.
     */
    Collection<SourceUnit> generate(Collection elements, boolean deps);

    /**
     * Generate files for the specified classifiers.
     * 
     * @see #generate(Collection, boolean)
     * @param elements the UML model elements to generate code for.
     * @param path The source base path.
     * @param deps Recursively generate dependency files too.
     * @return The filenames (with relative path) as a collection of Strings.
     *         The collection may be empty if no file will be generated.
     */
    Collection<String> generateFiles(Collection elements, String path, 
            boolean deps);

    /**
     * Returns a list of files that will be generated from the specified
     * modelelements.
     * 
     * @see #generate(Collection, boolean)
     * @param elements the UML model elements to generate code for.
     * @param deps Recursively generate dependency files too.
     * @return The filenames (with relative path) as a collection of Strings.
     *         The collection may be empty if no file will be generated.
     */
    Collection<String> generateFileList(Collection elements, boolean deps);
}