/*
* Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 Acegi Technology Pty Limited
*
* 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 org.springframework.security.core.context;
/**
* A strategy for storing security context information against a thread.
*
* <p>
* The preferred strategy is loaded by {@link SecurityContextHolder}.
*
* @author Ben Alex
*/
public interface SecurityContextHolderStrategy {
// ~ Methods
// ========================================================================================================
/**
* Clears the current context.
*/
void clearContext();
/**
* Obtains the current context.
*
* @return a context (never <code>null</code> - create a default implementation if
* necessary)
*/
SecurityContext getContext();
/**
* Sets the current context.
*
* @param context to the new argument (should never be <code>null</code>, although
* implementations must check if <code>null</code> has been passed and throw an
* <code>IllegalArgumentException</code> in such cases)
*/
void setContext(SecurityContext context);
/**
* Creates a new, empty context implementation, for use by
* <tt>SecurityContextRepository</tt> implementations, when creating a new context for
* the first time.
*
* @return the empty context.
*/
SecurityContext createEmptyContext();
}