/*

 * Copyright 1997-2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.

 *

 * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it

 * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as

 * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Sun designates this

 * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided

 * by Sun in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.

 *

 * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT

 * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or

 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License

 * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that

 * accompanied this code).

 *

 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version

 * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,

 * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

 *

 * Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara,

 * CA 95054 USA or visit www.sun.com if you need additional information or

 * have any questions.

 */

package java.awt;

/**

 * An interface for events that know how to dispatch themselves.

 * By implementing this interface an event can be placed upon the event

 * queue and its <code>dispatch()</code> method will be called when the event

 * is dispatched, using the <code>EventDispatchThread</code>.

 * <p>

 * This is a very useful mechanism for avoiding deadlocks. If

 * a thread is executing in a critical section (i.e., it has entered

 * one or more monitors), calling other synchronized code may

 * cause deadlocks. To avoid the potential deadlocks, an

 * <code>ActiveEvent</code> can be created to run the second section of

 * code at later time. If there is contention on the monitor,

 * the second thread will simply block until the first thread

 * has finished its work and exited its monitors.

 * <p>

 * For security reasons, it is often desirable to use an <code>ActiveEvent</code>

 * to avoid calling untrusted code from a critical thread. For

 * instance, peer implementations can use this facility to avoid

 * making calls into user code from a system thread. Doing so avoids

 * potential deadlocks and denial-of-service attacks.

 *

 * @author  Timothy Prinzing

 * @since   1.2

 */

public interface ActiveEvent {

    /**

     * Dispatch the event to its target, listeners of the events source,

     * or do whatever it is this event is supposed to do.

     */

    public void dispatch();

}