OWLExportable.java

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You 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.apache.stanbol.ontologymanager.servicesapi.ontology;

import org.semanticweb.owlapi.model.IRI;

/**
 * An object that can be represented as an ontology instance.
 * 
 * @author alexdma
 * 
 */
public interface OWLExportable {

    /**
     * The policy that determines how an OWL exportable objects should represent other referenced objects.
     * 
     * @author alexdma
     * 
     */
    public enum ConnectivityPolicy {

        /**
         * A minimum set of import statements will be used to connect this artifact with other referenced
         * objects.
         */
        LOOSE,

        /**
         * This artifact will be connected with other referenced objects using as many import statements as
         * can guarantee the greatest expressiveness of the ontologies.
         */
        TIGHT

    };

    /**
     * Returns an ontological form of this object of the specified return type, if supported. If the supplied
     * class is not a supported return type, an {@link UnsupportedOperationException} is thrown. <br>
     * <br>
     * TODO replace merge parameter with integer for merge level (-1 for infinite).
     * 
     * @param returnType
     *            the desired class of the returned object.
     * @param merge
     *            if true, all imported ontologies will be merged and no import statements will appear.
     * @return the ontology that represents this object.
     */
    <O> O export(Class<O> returnType, boolean merge);

    /**
     * Returns an ontological form of this object of the specified return type, if supported. If the supplied
     * class is not a supported return type, an {@link UnsupportedOperationException} is thrown. <br>
     * <br>
     * TODO replace merge parameter with integer for merge level (-1 for infinite).
     * 
     * @param returnType
     *            the desired class of the returned object.
     * @param merge
     *            if true, all imported ontologies will be merged and no import statements will appear.
     * @return the ontology that represents this object.
     */
    <O> O export(Class<O> returnType, boolean merge, IRI universalPrefix);

    /**
     * Returns the connectivity policy adopted by this object when exported to an OWL artifact.
     * 
     * @return the connectivity policy.
     */
    ConnectivityPolicy getConnectivityPolicy();

    /**
     * Sets the connectivity policy that will be adopted by this object when it is exported to an OWL
     * artifact.
     * 
     * @param policy
     *            the new connectivity policy.
     */
    void setConnectivityPolicy(ConnectivityPolicy policy);

}