/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2000, 2006 IBM Corporation and others.
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
 *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.jdt.core;

/**
 * Common protocol for Java elements that contain other Java elements.
 * <p>
 * This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients.
 * </p>
 */
public interface IParent {
/**
 * Returns the immediate children of this element.
 * Unless otherwise specified by the implementing element,
 * the children are in no particular order.
 *
 * @exception JavaModelException if this element does not exist or if an
 *      exception occurs while accessing its corresponding resource
 * @return the immediate children of this element
 */
IJavaElement[] getChildren() throws JavaModelException;
/**
 * Returns whether this element has one or more immediate children.
 * This is a convenience method, and may be more efficient than
 * testing whether <code>getChildren</code> is an empty array.
 *
 * @exception JavaModelException if this element does not exist or if an
 *      exception occurs while accessing its corresponding resource
 * @return true if the immediate children of this element, false otherwise
 */
boolean hasChildren() throws JavaModelException;
}