Application: gvSIG desktop

/* gvSIG. Geographic Information System of the Valencian Government

*

* Copyright (C) 2007-2008 Infrastructures and Transports Department

* of the Valencian Government (CIT)

* 

* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or

* modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License

* as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2

* of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

* 

* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the

* GNU General Public License for more details.

* 

* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software

* Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, 

* MA  02110-1301, USA.

* 

*/

/*

* AUTHORS (In addition to CIT):

* 2008 Geographic Information research group: http://www.geoinfo.uji.es

* Departamento de Lenguajes y Sistemas Inform?ticos (LSI)

* Universitat Jaume I   

* {{Task}}

*/

package org.gvsig.metadata;

import java.io.InputStream;

import org.gvsig.metadata.exceptions.MetadataException;

import org.gvsig.tools.dynobject.DynStruct;

/**

 * Manages the load and storage of Metadata objects.

 * 

 * @author <a href="mailto:cordin@disid.com">C?sar Ordi?ana</a>

 */

public interface MetadataManager {

        public final static String METADATA_NAMESPACE = "metadata";

        /**

         * Add a new definition in the metadata manager.

         * 

         * The new definition is defined in the namespace by default

         * for DynClasses used for metadata.

         * @param name

         * @param description

         * @return

         * @throws MetadataException;

         */

        public DynStruct addDefinition(String name, String description) throws MetadataException;

        public DynStruct addDefinition(String name,

                        InputStream stream, ClassLoader loader) throws MetadataException;

        /**

         * <p>if has registered in this manager a metadata definition for

         * this name, then this method return that definition.

         * Otherwise, it returns null.

         * </p>

         *

         * @param definition name

         *            the name whose corresponding attribute definition is to be

         *            retrieved.

         *

         * @return The attribute definition corresponding to the provided metadata

         *         class, or null otherwise.

         */

        public DynStruct getDefinition(String name);

        public MetadataContainer createMetadataContainer(String name);

        public void storeMetadata(Metadata metadata) throws MetadataException;

        public void loadMetadata(Metadata metadata)throws MetadataException;

}