using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using Otis.Providers;



namespace Otis

{

	/// <summary>

	/// This interface is used to provide <see cref="Configuration"/> object with mapping information

	/// </summary>

	/// <remarks>

	/// Configuration class can be configured from various sources: XML data, directly from the assembly which

	/// contains mapped types, etc. Internally, <c>Configuration</c> class accesses this information through

	/// instances of <see cref="IMappingDescriptorProvider"/> interface. For every supported source type, 

	/// there is an implementation of <c>IMappingDescriptorProvider</c>. E.g. XML data is processed using

	/// <see cref="XmlMappingDescriptionProvider"/> class, while assembly metadata is processed using

	/// <see cref="AssemblyResourceMappingDescriptorProvider"/>. To provide support for custom mapping info

	/// sources, client applications need to provide an implementation of <c>IMappingDescriptorProvider</c>

	/// and call <see cref="Configuration.AddProvider"/>.

	/// <example>

	/// Example:

	/// <code>

	/// 	Configuration cfg = new Configuration();

	///     // CustomMappingProvider is an imaginary class which reads mapping info from web service

	/// 	IMappingDescriptorProvider provider = new CustomMappingProvider("http://server/get_mappings.asmx");

	/// 	cfg.AddProvider(provider);

	/// </code>

	/// </example>

	/// </remarks>

	public interface IMappingDescriptorProvider

	{

		/// <summary>

		/// Returns a list of mapping descriptors. For each tranformation type, there is an

		/// <see cref="ClassMappingDescriptor"/> instance in the list

		/// </summary>

		IList<ClassMappingDescriptor> ClassDescriptors { get; }

	}

}