/*
 * reserved comment block
 * DO NOT REMOVE OR ALTER!
 */
/*
 * 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 com.sun.org.apache.bcel.internal.util;


import com.sun.org.apache.bcel.internal.classfile.JavaClass;

/**
 * Abstract definition of a class repository. Instances may be used
 * to load classes from different sources and may be used in the
 * Repository.setRepository method.
 *
 * @see com.sun.org.apache.bcel.internal.Repository
 * @author <A HREF="mailto:markus.dahm@berlin.de">M. Dahm</A>
 * @author David Dixon-Peugh
 */
public interface Repository extends java.io.Serializable {
  /**
   * Store the provided class under "clazz.getClassName()"
   */
  public void storeClass(JavaClass clazz);

  /**
   * Remove class from repository
   */
  public void removeClass(JavaClass clazz);

  /**
   * Find the class with the name provided, if the class
   * isn't there, return NULL.
   */
  public JavaClass findClass(String className);

  /**
   * Find the class with the name provided, if the class
   * isn't there, make an attempt to load it.
   */
  public JavaClass loadClass(String className)
    throws java.lang.ClassNotFoundException;

  /**
   * Find the JavaClass instance for the given run-time class object
   */
  public JavaClass loadClass(Class clazz)
    throws java.lang.ClassNotFoundException;

  /** Clear all entries from cache.
   */
  public void clear();
}