/*
 * Copyright (C) 2009 eXo Platform SAS.
 *
 * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
 * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
 * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
 * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
 */
package org.etk.core.membership;

import java.util.Collection;

/**
 * Created by The eXo Platform SAS.
 * 
 * Author : Tuan Nguyen tuan08@users.sourceforge.net Oct 13, 2005.
 * 
 * This class is acted as a sub component of the organization service. It is used to manage the
 * membership type and broadcast the membership type event to all the registered listener in the
 * organization service. The membership type event can be: new mebership type, update the membership
 * type and delete the membership type event. Each event should have 2 phases: pre event and post
 * event. The method createMembershipType(..) , saveMembershipType(..) and removeMembershipType
 * broadcast the event at each phase so the listeners can handle the event properly
 * 
 * TODO Currently the membership type handler do not support the listener and broadcasting. We
 * should implement this and broadcast the event properly.
 */
public interface MembershipTypeHandler
{
   public static String PRE_DELETE_MEMBERSHIP_TYPE_EVENT = "organization.membershipType.preDelete";

   public static String POST_DELETE_MEMBERSHIP_TYPE_EVENT = "porganization.membershipType.postDelete";

   /**
    * @return a new object instance that implement the MembershipType interface
    */
   public MembershipType createMembershipTypeInstance();

   /**
    * Use this method to persist a new membership type. The developer usually should call the method
    * createMembershipTypeInstance, to create a new MembershipType, set the memerbership type data
    * and call this method to persist the membership type.
    * 
    * @param mt
    *          The new membership type that the developer want to persist
    * @param broadcast
    *          Broadcast the event if the broadcast value is 'true'
    * @return Return the MembershiptType object that contains the updated informations. Note that the
    *         return membership type cannot be the same with the mt as the method can set the created
    *         date and modified date automatically.
    * @throws Exception
    *           An exception is throwed if the method cannot access the database or a listener fail
    *           to handle the event
    */
   public MembershipType createMembershipType(MembershipType mt, boolean broadcast) throws Exception;

   /**
    * Use this method to update an existed MembershipType data. Usually the developer should call
    * findMembershipType(..) to get the membership type object and change the data of the membership
    * type and call this method to update the data.
    * 
    * @param mt
    *          The membership type object to update.
    * @param broadcast
    *          Broadcast the event to all the registered listener if the broadcast value is 'true'
    * @return Return the updated membership type object.
    * @throws Exception
    *           An exception is throwed if the method cannot access the database or any listener fail
    *           to handle the event.
    */
   public MembershipType saveMembershipType(MembershipType mt, boolean broadcast) throws Exception;

   /**
    * Use this method to remove a membership type.
    * 
    * @param name
    *          the membership type name
    * @param broadcast
    *          Broadcast the event to the registered listener if the broadcast value is 'true'
    * @return The membership type object which has been removed from the database
    * @throws Exception
    *           An exception is throwed if the method cannot access the database or the membership
    *           type is not found in the database or any listener fail to handle the event.
    */
   public MembershipType removeMembershipType(String name, boolean broadcast) throws Exception;

   /**
    * Use this method to search for a membership type with the specified name.
    * 
    * @param name
    *          the name of the membership type.
    * @return null if no membership type that matched the name or the found membership type.
    * @throws Exception
    *           An exception is throwed if the method cannot access the database or more than one
    *           membership type is found.
    */
   public MembershipType findMembershipType(String name) throws Exception;

   /**
    * Use this method to get all the membership types in the database
    * 
    * @return A collection of the membership type. The collection cannot be null. If there is no
    *         membership type in the database, the collection should be empty.
    * @throws Exception
    *           Ususally an exception is throwed when the method cannot access the database.
    */
   public Collection findMembershipTypes() throws Exception;
}