001    /*
002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003     * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
004     * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005     * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache license, Version 2.0
006     * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007     * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
008     *
009     *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010     *
011     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014     * See the license for the specific language governing permissions and
015     * limitations under the license.
016     */
017    package org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.db.nosql;
018    
019    /**
020     * Implementations of this class are plugins for configuring the {@link NoSQLAppender} with the proper provider
021     * (MongoDB, etc.).
022     * 
023     * @param <C> Specifies which implementation of {@link NoSQLConnection} this provider provides.
024     */
025    public interface NoSQLProvider<C extends NoSQLConnection<?, ? extends NoSQLObject<?>>> {
026        /**
027         * Obtains a connection from this provider. The concept of a connection in this case is not strictly an active
028         * duplex UDP or TCP connection to the underlying database. It can be thought of more as a gateway, a path for
029         * inserting objects that may use a persistent connection or may use HTTP web service calls, etc.
030         *
031         * @return a connection that can be used to create and persist objects to this database.
032         * @see NoSQLConnection
033         */
034        C getConnection();
035    
036        /**
037         * All implementations must override {@link Object#toString()} to provide information about the provider
038         * configuration (obscuring passwords with one-way hashes).
039         *
040         * @return the string representation of this NoSQL provider.
041         */
042        @Override
043        String toString();
044    }