package de.intevation.artifacts;

import java.io.Serializable;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;

/**
 * Interface of an artifact producing factory.
 *
 * @author Sascha L. Teichmann (sascha.teichmann@intevation.de)
 */
public interface ArtifactFactory extends Serializable
{
    /**
     * The short name of this factory.
     * @return the name of this factory.
     */
    String getName();

    /**
     * Description of this factory.
     * @return description of the factory.
     */
    String getDescription();

    /**
     * Create a new artifact of certain type, given a general purpose context and
     * an identifier.
     * @param context a context from the ArtifactDatabase.
     * @param identifier unique identifer for the new artifact
     * @return a new {@linkplain de.intevation.artifacts.Artifact Artifact}
     */
    Artifact createArtifact(String identifier, Object context);

    /**
     * Setup the factory with a given configuration
     * @param config the configuration
     * @param factoryNode the ConfigurationNode of this Factory
     */
    void setup(Document config, Node factoryNode);

    /**
     * Tells how long an artifact should survive if it is
     * not touched. This is put in the factory because
     * life time is nothing a artifact should handle it self.
     * This method is only called once directly after the
     * artifact is created.
     * @param artifact The artifact to be rated.
     * @param context  The global context.
     * return time to live in ms. null means eternal.
     */
    Long timeToLiveUntouched(Artifact artifact, Object context);

    ArtifactSerializer getSerializer();
}
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