/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.apache.log4j.spi;

/**
 * A string based interface to configure package components.
 * 
 * @author Ceki G&uuml;lc&uuml;
 * @author Anders Kristensen
 * @since 0.8.1
 */
public interface OptionHandler {

    /**
     * Activate the options that were previously set with calls to option setters.
     * 
     * <p>
     * This allows to defer activiation of the options until all options have been
     * set. This is required for components which have related options that remain
     * ambigous until all are set.
     * 
     * <p>
     * For example, the FileAppender has the
     * {@link org.apache.log4j.FileAppender#setFile File} and
     * {@link org.apache.log4j.FileAppender#setAppend Append} options both of which
     * are ambigous until the other is also set.
     */
    void activateOptions();

    /**
     * Return list of strings that the OptionHandler instance recognizes.
     * 
     * @deprecated We now use JavaBeans style getters/setters.
     */
    // String[] getOptionStrings();

    /**
     * Set <code>option</code> to <code>value</code>.
     * 
     * <p>
     * The handling of each option depends on the OptionHandler instance. Some
     * options may become active immediately whereas other may be activated only
     * when {@link #activateOptions} is called.
     * 
     * @deprecated We now use JavaBeans style getters/setters.
     */
    // void setOption(String option, String value);
}
