/*

 * Copyright 2009 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

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 */

package com.sun.nio.sctp;

/**

 * A handler for consuming notifications from the SCTP stack.

 *

 * <P> The SCTP channels defined in this package allow a notification handler to

 * be specified to consume notifications from the SCTP stack. When a

 * notification is received the {@linkplain #handleNotification

 * handleNotification} method of the handler is invoked to handle that

 * notification.

 *

 * <P> Additionally, an attachment object can be attached to the {@code receive}

 * operation to provide context when consuming the notification. The

 * attachment is important for cases where a <i>state-less</i> {@code

 * NotificationHandler} is used to consume the result of many {@code receive}

 * operations.

 *

 * <P> Handler implementations are encouraged to extend the {@link

 * AbstractNotificationHandler} class which implements this interface and

 * provide notification specific methods. However, an API should generally use

 * this handler interface as the type for parameters, return type, etc. rather

 * than the abstract class.

 *

 * @param  T  The type of the object attached to the receive operation

 *

 * @since 1.7

 */

public interface NotificationHandler<T> {

    /**

     * Invoked when a notification is received from the SCTP stack.

     *

     * @param  notification

     *         The notification

     *

     * @param  attachment

     *         The object attached to the receive operation when it was initiated.

     *

     * @return  The handler result

     */

    HandlerResult handleNotification(Notification notification, T attachment);

}