001 /* XPathExpression.java --
002 Copyright (C) 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
003
004 This file is part of GNU Classpath.
005
006 GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
007 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
008 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
009 any later version.
010
011 GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
012 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
014 General Public License for more details.
015
016 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
017 along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the
018 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
019 02110-1301 USA.
020
021 Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
022 making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and
023 conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
024 combination.
025
026 As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
027 permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
028 executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
029 modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
030 terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
031 independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
032 module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from
033 or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend
034 this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
035 obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this
036 exception statement from your version. */
037
038 package javax.xml.xpath;
039
040 import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
041 import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
042
043 /**
044 * An XPath expression.
045 *
046 * @author (a href='mailto:dog@gnu.org'>Chris Burdess</a)
047 * @since 1.3
048 */
049 public interface XPathExpression
050 {
051
052 /**
053 * Evaluates this expression against the specified context.
054 * @param item the evaluation context
055 * @param returnType the desired return type
056 */
057 Object evaluate(Object item,
058 QName returnType)
059 throws XPathExpressionException;
060
061 /**
062 * Evaluates this expression against the specified context, returning the
063 * result as a string.
064 * @param item the evaluation context
065 */
066 String evaluate(Object item)
067 throws XPathExpressionException;
068
069 /**
070 * Evaluates this expression against the specified context.
071 * @param source the source to load the context from
072 * @param returnType the desired return type
073 */
074 Object evaluate(InputSource source,
075 QName returnType)
076 throws XPathExpressionException;
077
078 /**
079 * Evaluates this expression against the specified context, returning the
080 * result as a string.
081 * @param source the source to load the context from
082 */
083 String evaluate(InputSource source)
084 throws XPathExpressionException;
085
086 }