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 */
020package org.apache.directory.api.ldap.codec.api;
021
022
023import org.apache.directory.api.ldap.model.message.Control;
024
025
026/**
027 * Implementors of new codec control extensions must implement a factory using
028 * this factory interface, Factory implementations for specific controls are
029 * then registered with the codec and used by the codec to encode and decode
030 * those controls.
031 *
032 * @param <C> The Control to create
033 * 
034 * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
035 */
036public interface ControlFactory<C extends Control>
037{
038    /**
039     * @return The OID of the Control this factory creates.
040     */
041    String getOid();
042
043
044    /**
045     * Creates and returns a decorated version of the Control.
046     *
047     * @return The {@link CodecControl} decorated version of the Control.
048     */
049    CodecControl<C> newCodecControl();
050
051
052    /**
053     * Decorates an existing control. Implementors should check to make sure
054     * the supplied Control has not already been decorated to prevent needless
055     * decorator nesting.
056     *
057     * @param control The {@link Control} to be decorated.
058     * @return The decorator wrapping the Control.
059     */
060    CodecControl<C> newCodecControl( C control );
061}