/*

 * Copyright 1999-2004 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 javax.naming;

/**

  * This interface is used for parsing names from a hierarchical

  * namespace.  The NameParser contains knowledge of the syntactic

  * information (like left-to-right orientation, name separator, etc.)

  * needed to parse names.

  *

  * The equals() method, when used to compare two NameParsers, returns

  * true if and only if they serve the same namespace.

  *

  * @author Rosanna Lee

  * @author Scott Seligman

  *

  * @see CompoundName

  * @see Name

  * @since 1.3

  */

public interface NameParser {

        /**

          * Parses a name into its components.

          *

          * @param name The non-null string name to parse.

          * @return A non-null parsed form of the name using the naming convention

          * of this parser.

          * @exception InvalidNameException If name does not conform to

          *     syntax defined for the namespace.

          * @exception NamingException If a naming exception was encountered.

          */

        Name parse(String name) throws NamingException;

}