/*
 * Copyright 2014 Daniel Bechler
 *
 * 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 de.danielbechler.diff.introspection;

import de.danielbechler.diff.ObjectDifferBuilder;
import de.danielbechler.diff.instantiation.InstanceFactory;
import de.danielbechler.diff.path.NodePath;

/**
 * Allows to replace the default bean introspector with a custom implementation. The default introspector internally
 * uses the `java.beans.Introspector` which has some limitations. The most important one being that it only operates on
 * getters and setters. In case field introspection is needed a custom introspector must be used. An introspector can
 * be
 * set as global default or on a per-property basis. It is also possible to turn off introspection for specific
 * properties in which case they will simply be compared via `equals` method.
 *
 * @author Daniel Bechler
 */
public interface IntrospectionConfigurer
{
	/**
	 * When assigning new values via {@link de.danielbechler.diff.node.DiffNode} (e.g. during merging) it will
	 * implicitly create missing instances of its parent objects along the path to the root object. By default those
	 * instances will be created via public non-arg constructor. If that fails a {@link
	 * de.danielbechler.diff.instantiation.TypeInstantiationException} will be thrown.
	 * <p/>
	 * To add support for types that need to be instantiated differently you can overide the default behavior via
	 * custom {@link de.danielbechler.diff.instantiation.InstanceFactory}. When doing so, don't worry about types
	 * actually that are suitable for the default behavior, as it will automatically kick in, whenever the custom
	 * factroy returns {@code null}.
	 *
	 * @param instanceFactory A custom instance factory
	 * @throws java.lang.IllegalArgumentException when the instanceFactory is null
	 */
	IntrospectionConfigurer setInstanceFactory(InstanceFactory instanceFactory);

	IntrospectionConfigurer setDefaultIntrospector(Introspector introspector);

	IntrospectionConfigurer handlePropertyAccessExceptionsUsing(PropertyAccessExceptionHandler exceptionHandler);

	Of ofType(Class<?> type);

	Of ofNode(NodePath path);

	ObjectDifferBuilder and();

	public static interface Of
	{
		IntrospectionConfigurer toUse(Introspector introspector);

		IntrospectionConfigurer toBeEnabled();

		IntrospectionConfigurer toBeDisabled();
	}
}