    001    /*
    002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
    003     * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
    004     * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
    005     * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
    006     * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
    007     * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    008     *
    009     *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    010     *
    011     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    012     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    013     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    014     * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    015     * limitations under the License.
    016     */
    017
    018    package org.apache.commons.configuration;
    019
    020    /**
    021     * <p>
    022     * Definition of an interface for objects that can create a configuration.
    023     * </p>
    024     * <p>
    025     * This interface defines an abstract way of creating a
    026     * <code>Configuration</code> object. It does not assume any specific way of
    027     * how this is done; this is completely in the responsibility of an
    028     * implementation class. There is just a single method that returns the
    029     * configuration constructed by this builder.
    030     * </p>
    031     *
    032     * @author <a href="http://commons.apache.org/configuration/team-list.html">Commons Configuration team</a>
    033     * @version $Id: ConfigurationBuilder.java 719319 2008-11-20 18:33:04Z rgoers $
    034     */
    035    public interface ConfigurationBuilder
    036    {
    037        /**
    038         * Returns the configuration provided by this builder. An implementation has
    039         * to perform all necessary steps for creating and initializing a
    040         * <code>Configuration</code> object.
    041         *
    042         * @return the configuration
    043         * @throws ConfigurationException if an error occurs
    044         */
    045        Configuration getConfiguration() throws ConfigurationException;
    046    }