/*******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2005, 2007 IBM Corporation and others.
* 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
*
*******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.dltk.core;
/**
* Common protocol for model elements that contain other model elements.
* <p>
* This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients.
* </p>
*/
public interface IParent {
/**
* Returns the immediate children of this element.
* Unless otherwise specified by the implementing element,
* the children are in no particular order.
*
* @exception ModelException if this element does not exist or if an
* exception occurs while accessing its corresponding resource
* @return the immediate children of this element
*/
IModelElement[] getChildren() throws ModelException;
/**
* Returns whether this element has one or more immediate children.
* This is a convenience method, and may be more efficient than
* testing whether <code>getChildren</code> is an empty array.
*
* @exception ModelException if this element does not exist or if an
* exception occurs while accessing its corresponding resource
* @return true if the immediate children of this element, false otherwise
*/
boolean hasChildren() throws ModelException;
}