/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2007, 2009 Oracle. 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:
 *     Oracle - initial API and implementation
 ******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.jpt.core.resource.java;

import org.eclipse.jdt.core.dom.CompilationUnit;
import org.eclipse.jpt.core.utility.TextRange;

/**
 * Corresponds to the JPA annotation
 * javax.persistence.OrderBy
 * 
 * Provisional API: This interface is part of an interim API that is still
 * under development and expected to change significantly before reaching
 * stability. It is available at this early stage to solicit feedback from
 * pioneering adopters on the understanding that any code that uses this API
 * will almost certainly be broken (repeatedly) as the API evolves.
 */
public interface OrderByAnnotation
	extends Annotation
{
	String ANNOTATION_NAME = JPA.ORDER_BY;

	/**
	 * Corresponds to the 'value' element of the OrderBy annotation.
	 * Return null if the element does not exist in the annotation.
	 */
	String getValue();
		String VALUE_PROPERTY = "value"; //$NON-NLS-1$
	
	/**
	 * Corresponds to the 'value' element of the OrderBy annotation.
	 * Setting the element to null will not remove the OrderBy annotation.
	 */
	void setValue(String value);
		
	/**
	 * Return the {@link TextRange} for the 'value' element. If the element 
	 * does not exist return the {@link TextRange} for the OrderBy annotation.
	 */
	TextRange getValueTextRange(CompilationUnit astRoot);

}