/*
 * 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.commons.jxpath;

/**
 * The {@link JXPathContext#createPath JXPathContext.createPath()} method of JXPathContext can create missing objects as it traverses an XPath; it utilizes an
 * AbstractFactory for that purpose. Install a factory on JXPathContext by calling {@link JXPathContext#setFactory JXPathContext. setFactory()}.
 * <p>
 * All methods of this class return false. Override any of them to return true to indicate that the factory has successfully created the described object.
 * </p>
 */
public abstract class AbstractFactory {


    /**
     * Constructs a new instance for subclasses.
     */
    public AbstractFactory() {
        // empty
    }

    /**
     * The parameters may describe a collection element or an individual object. It is up to the factory to infer which one it is. If it is a collection, the
     * factory should check if the collection exists. If not, it should create the collection. Then it should create the index'th element of the collection and
     * return true.
     *
     * @param context can be used to evaluate other XPaths, get to variables etc.
     * @param pointer describes the location of the node to be created
     * @param parent  is the object that will serve as a parent of the new object
     * @param name    is the name of the child of the parent that needs to be created. In the case of DOM may be qualified.
     * @param index   is used if the pointer represents a collection element. You may need to expand or even create the collection to accommodate the new
     *                element.
     *
     * @return true if the object was successfully created
     */
    public boolean createObject(final JXPathContext context, final Pointer pointer, final Object parent, final String name, final int index) {
        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Declare the specified variable
     *
     * @param context hosts variable pools. See {@link JXPathContext#getVariables() JXPathContext.getVariables()}
     * @param name    is the name of the variable without the "$" sign
     * @return true if the variable was successfully defined
     */
    public boolean declareVariable(final JXPathContext context, final String name) {
        return false;
    }
}
