/**

  * Copyright 2005-2011 The Kuali Foundation

  *

  * Licensed under the Educational Community 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.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php

  *

  * 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.kuali.rice.core.api.mo;

 /**

  * This is an interface that defines a builder.  A builder is an object used to

  * assemble and construct an instance of another object.  Typically the object

  * being constructed will be an immutable object (and therefore does not

  * contain "setters" which can be used to mutate it's state).  The builder

  * pattern is a creation pattern that can be used to aid in the construction of

  * these complex immutable objects.

  * 

  * <p>This interface only defines a common {@link #build()} method which is

  * used to return an instance of the object once state has been set on the

  * builder to a point where construction of an object instance is deemed

  * acceptable by the client code.  Definition of type-specific setter methods

  * are defined by the classes which implement this interface.

  *

  * <p>This version of the builder pattern is proposed by Joshua Bloch in his

  * book "Effective Java".  See "Effective Java" 2nd ed. page 15 for more

  * information.

  * 

  * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)

  * 

  */

 public interface ModelBuilder {

         /**

          * Returns an instance of the object being built by this builder based

          * on the current state of the builder.  It should be possible to

          * invoke this method more than once on the same builder.  It should

          * never return null;

          * 

          * @return an instance of the object being built by this builder,

          * should never return null

          */

      Object build();

 }