/*
* 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.collections;
/**
* Defines a functor interface implemented by classes that create objects.
* <p>
* A <code>Factory</code> creates an object without using an input parameter.
* If an input parameter is required, then {@link Transformer} is more appropriate.
* <p>
* Standard implementations of common factories are provided by
* {@link FactoryUtils}. These include factories that return a constant,
* a copy of a prototype or a new instance.
*
* @since Commons Collections 2.1
* @version $Revision: 646777 $ $Date: 2008-04-10 13:33:15 +0100 (Thu, 10 Apr 2008) $
*
* @author Arron Bates
* @author Stephen Colebourne
*/
public interface Factory {
/**
* Create a new object.
*
* @return a new object
* @throws FunctorException (runtime) if the factory cannot create an object
*/
public Object create();
}