ipojo/src/main/java/org/apache/felix/ipojo/Factory.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.felix.ipojo;

import java.util.Dictionary;

/**
 * Component Type Factory Service.
 * This service is exposed by a component manager factory, and allows the dynamic creation of component instance.
 * @author <a href="mailto:felix-dev@incubator.apache.org">Felix Project Team</a>
 */
public interface Factory {

    /**
     * Create a component manager (i.e. component type instance).
     * @param configuration : the configuration properties for this component.
     * @return the created component manager.
     */
    ComponentManager createComponent(Dictionary configuration);
    
    /**
     * Create a component manager (i.e. component type instance).
     * This has these service interaction in the scope given in argument.
     * @param configuration : the configuration properties for this component.
     * @param serviceContext : the service context of the component.
     * @return the created component manager.
     */
    ComponentManager createComponent(Dictionary configuration, ServiceContext serviceContext);

    /**
     * Get the component type information containing provided service, configuration properties ...
     * @return the compionent type information.
     */
    ComponentInfo getComponentInfo();
    
    /**
     * Check if the given configuration is acceptable as a configuration of a component instance.
     * @param conf : the configuration to test
     * @return true if the configuration is acceptable
     */
    boolean isAcceptable(Dictionary conf);

}