/**

  * 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.krms.api.engine;

 /**

  * Interface for the engine that is used to resolve {@link Term}s.

  * 

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

  *

  */

 public interface TermResolutionEngine {

         /**

          * Resolves a given term into a fact

          * @param term the {@link Term} to resolve

          * @return the fact value for the given {@link Term}

          * @throws TermResolutionException if the given {@link Term} can't be resolved

          */

         <T> T resolveTerm(Term term) throws TermResolutionException;

         /**

          * Adds a fact value to the {@link TermResolutionEngine}'s internal state

          * @param term the named Term

          * @param value the fact value

          */

         void addTermValue(Term term, Object value);

         /**

          * Adds a {@link TermResolver} to the {@link TermResolutionEngine}.  Once added, it may

          * be used (unsurprisingly) by the engine to resolve {@link Term}s.

          * @param termResolver the {@link TermResolver} to add.

          */

         void addTermResolver(TermResolver<?> termResolver);

 }