/*******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2000, 2006 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
*
* Contributors:
* IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
*******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.jface.text;
/**
* Interface for text related objects which may be used in the multi-threaded
* context and thus must provide a way to prevent concurrent access and
* manipulation.
* <p>
* In order to reduce the probability of dead locks clients should synchronize
* their access to these objects by using the provided lock object rather than
* the object itself.</p>
* <p>
* Managing objects can use the <code>setLockObject</code> method in order to
* synchronize whole sets of objects.</p>
*
* @since 3.0
*/
public interface ISynchronizable {
/**
* Sets the lock object for this object. If the lock object is not
* <code>null</code> subsequent calls to specified methods of this object
* are synchronized on this lock object. Which methods are synchronized is
* specified by the implementer.
* <p>
* <em>You should not override an existing lock object unless you own
* that lock object yourself. Use the existing lock object instead.</em>
* </p>
*
* @param lockObject the lock object. May be <code>null</code>.
*/
void setLockObject(Object lockObject);
/**
* Returns the lock object or <code>null</code> if there is none. Clients
* should use the lock object in order to synchronize concurrent access to
* the implementer.
*
* @return the lock object or <code>null</code>
*/
Object getLockObject();
}