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 package org.apache.commons.collections; 018 019 /** 020 * Defines a functor interface implemented by classes that create objects. 021 * <p> 022 * A <code>Factory</code> creates an object without using an input parameter. 023 * If an input parameter is required, then {@link Transformer} is more appropriate. 024 * <p> 025 * Standard implementations of common factories are provided by 026 * {@link FactoryUtils}. These include factories that return a constant, 027 * a copy of a prototype or a new instance. 028 * 029 * @since Commons Collections 2.1 030 * @version $Revision: 646777 $ $Date: 2008-04-10 13:33:15 +0100 (Thu, 10 Apr 2008) $ 031 * 032 * @author Arron Bates 033 * @author Stephen Colebourne 034 */ 035 public interface Factory { 036 037 /** 038 * Create a new object. 039 * 040 * @return a new object 041 * @throws FunctorException (runtime) if the factory cannot create an object 042 */ 043 public Object create(); 044 045 }