| /******************************************************************************* |
| * Copyright (c) 2005, 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.core.runtime; |
| |
| import org.eclipse.core.runtime.CoreException; |
| |
| /** |
| * This interface allows extension providers to control how the instances provided to extension-points are being created |
| * by referring to the factory instead of referring to a class. For example, the following extension to the preference page |
| * extension-point uses a factory called <code>PreferencePageFactory</code>. |
| * <code><pre> |
| * <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.preferencePages"> |
| * <page name="..." class="org.eclipse.update.ui.PreferencePageFactory:org.eclipse.update.ui.preferences.MainPreferencePage"> |
| * </page> |
| * </extension> |
| * </pre> |
| * </code> |
| * |
| * <p> |
| * Effectively, factories give full control over the create executable extension process. |
| * </p><p> |
| * The factories are responsible for handling the case where the concrete instance implement {@link IExecutableExtension}. |
| * </p><p> |
| * Given that factories are instantiated as executable extensions, they must provide a 0-argument public constructor. |
| * Like any other executable extension, they can configured by implementing {@link org.eclipse.core.runtime.IExecutableExtension} interface. |
| * </p> |
| * @see org.eclipse.core.runtime.IConfigurationElement |
| */ |
| public interface IExecutableExtensionFactory { |
| /** |
| * Creates and returns a new instance. |
| * |
| * @exception CoreException if an instance of the executable extension |
| * could not be created for any reason |
| */ |
| Object create() throws CoreException; |
| } |
