/*******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 EclipseSource 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:
* EclipseSource - initial API and implementation
******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.equinox.p2.query;
/**
* A query in which the elements can be evaluated by calling isMatch on. Each
* element can be evaluated independently of all other elements. Match queries
* can be evaluated in parallel as each call {@link #isMatch(Object)} is mutually
* exclusive from all other calls. <P>
*
* @noimplement This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients. Clients
* creating custom queries must extend {@link ExpressionMatchQuery}.
* @deprecated If possible, use one of the predefined queries in {@link QueryUtil} or
* use the {@link QueryUtil#createMatchQuery(String, Object...)}
* to create a custom expression based query. If the query cannot be expressed using
* the p2QL, then use a predefined or custom expression query as a first filter
* (in worst case, use {@link QueryUtil#createIUAnyQuery()}) and then provide further filtering
* like so:<pre>
* for(iter = queryable.query(someExpressionQuery).iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
* // do your match here
* }</pre>
* @since 2.0
*/
public interface IMatchQuery<T> extends IQuery<T> {
/**
* Returns whether the given object satisfies the parameters of this query.
*
* @param candidate The object to perform the query against
* @return <code>true</code> if the unit satisfies the parameters
* of this query, and <code>false</code> otherwise
*
* @noreference This method is not intended to be referenced by clients.
*/
public boolean isMatch(T candidate);
}