package org.apache.torque.engine.database.model;

 /*

  * 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.

  */

 import java.util.List;

 import org.apache.torque.engine.EngineException;

 /**

  * The generic interface to a name generation algorithm.

  * 

  * @author <a href="mailto:dlr@finemaltcoding.com>Daniel Rall</a>

  * @author <a href="mailto:byron_foster@byron_foster@yahoo.com>Byron Foster</a>

  * @version $Id: NameGenerator.java,v 1.1 2007-10-21 07:57:27 abyrne Exp $

  */

 public interface NameGenerator {

     /**

      * The character used by most implementations as the separator between name elements.

      */

     char STD_SEPARATOR_CHAR = '_';

     /**

      * The character which separates the schema name from the table name

      */

     char SCHEMA_SEPARATOR_CHAR = '.';

     /**

      * Traditional method for converting schema table and column names to java names. The <code>CONV_METHOD_XXX</code>

      * constants define how names for columns and tables in the database schema will be converted to java source names.

      * 

      * @see JavaNameGenerator#underscoreMethod(String)

      */

     String CONV_METHOD_UNDERSCORE = "underscore";

     /**

      * Similar to {@link #CONV_METHOD_UNDERSCORE} except a possible schema name (preceding a dot (.) )is omitted

      * 

      * @see JavaNameGenerator#underscoreOmitSchemaMethod(String)

      */

     String CONV_METHOD_UNDERSCORE_OMIT_SCHEMA = "underscoreOmitSchema";

     /**

      * Similar to {@link #CONV_METHOD_UNDERSCORE} except nothing is converted to lowercase.

      * 

      * @see JavaNameGenerator#javanameMethod(String)

      */

     String CONV_METHOD_JAVANAME = "javaname";

     /**

      * Specifies no modification when converting from a schema column or table name to a java name.

      */

     String CONV_METHOD_NOCHANGE = "nochange";

     /**

      * Given a list of <code>String</code> objects, implements an algorithm which produces a name.

      * 

      * @param inputs

      *            Inputs used to generate a name.

      * @return The generated name.

      * @throws EngineException

      *             if the name could not be generated

      */

     String generateName(List inputs) throws EngineException;

 }