001    /****************************************************************
002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one   *
003     * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file *
004     * distributed with this work for additional information        *
005     * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file   *
006     * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the            *
007     * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance   *
008     * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at   *
009     *                                                              *
010     *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0                 *
011     *                                                              *
012     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,   *
013     * software distributed under the License is distributed on an  *
014     * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY       *
015     * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the    *
016     * specific language governing permissions and limitations      *
017     * under the License.                                           *
018     ****************************************************************/
019    
020    package org.apache.james.jspf.parser;
021    
022    import java.util.regex.Pattern;
023    
024    /**
025     * A term definition contains everything needed to match and create
026     * new Terms implementations.
027     */
028    public interface TermDefinition {
029    
030        /**
031         * Retrieve the pattern to be used to match a string against this record type.
032         * 
033         * @return the pattern for this term
034         */
035        public Pattern getPattern();
036    
037        /**
038         * The class implementing this Term type.
039         * 
040         * @return the class object.
041         */
042        public Class<?> getTermDef();
043    
044        /**
045         * Return the number of groups to be expected from the pattern of this
046         * Term.
047         * 
048         * @return the number of groups
049         */
050        public int getMatchSize();
051    
052    }