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1   /**
2    * Copyright 2005-2015 The Kuali Foundation
3    *
4    * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
5    * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
6    * You may obtain a copy of the License at
7    *
8    * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php
9    *
10   * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
11   * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
12   * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
13   * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
14   * limitations under the License.
15   */
16  package org.kuali.rice.krms.framework.engine;
17  
18  import java.util.Map;
19  
20  import org.kuali.rice.krms.api.engine.ExecutionOptions;
21  import org.kuali.rice.krms.api.engine.SelectionCriteria;
22  import org.kuali.rice.krms.api.engine.Term;
23  
24  /**
25   * Loads a {@link Context} for the given set of criteria.  Applications who
26   * want to provide their own means for creating a context and supplying it to
27   * the KRMS engine can do so by implementing a custom ContextProvider. 
28   * 
29   * @see Context
30   * 
31   * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)
32   *
33   */
34  public interface ContextProvider {
35  
36  	/**
37  	 * Loads the context for the given selection criteria, facts, and execution
38  	 * options.  If no context can be located based on the given criteria, then
39  	 * this method should return null.
40  	 * 
41  	 * <p>In the case where multiple Contexts could potentially be identified
42  	 * from the same set of selection criteria, it is up to the implementer
43  	 * of the ContextProvider to ensure that the most appropriate Context is
44  	 * returned.  Or alternatively, an exception could be thrown indicating
45  	 * context ambiguity.
46  	 * 
47  	 * <p>The sectionCriteria, facts, and executionOptions which are passed to
48  	 * this method should never be null.  However, they might be empty.
49  	 * 
50  	 * @param selectionCriteria the criteria to use during the selection phase of engine operation
51  	 * @param facts the set of facts that are supplied to the engine at execution time
52  	 * @param executionOptions a collection of options that can be used to customize engine execution behavior
53  	 * 
54  	 * @return the context which matches the given criteria, or null if no context matches
55  	 */
56  	public Context loadContext(SelectionCriteria selectionCriteria, Map<Term, Object> facts, ExecutionOptions executionOptions);
57  	
58  }