TMF: Change event matching key from a list to a plain old java object

[deliverable/tracecompass.git] / org.eclipse.tracecompass.tmf.core / src / org / eclipse / tracecompass / tmf / core / event / matching / ITmfMatchEventDefinition.java

/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2013 École Polytechnique de Montréal
 *
 * 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:
 *   Geneviève Bastien - Initial implementation and API
 *******************************************************************************/

package org.eclipse.tracecompass.tmf.core.event.matching;

import org.eclipse.tracecompass.tmf.core.event.ITmfEvent;
import org.eclipse.tracecompass.tmf.core.event.matching.TmfEventMatching.MatchingType;
import org.eclipse.tracecompass.tmf.core.trace.ITmfTrace;

/**
 * This interface describe a concrete method to match events. Typically it
 * manages for a given matching type what events/fields are used to match events
 *
 * @author Geneviève Bastien
 * @since 3.0
 */
public interface ITmfMatchEventDefinition {

    /**
     * Returns a key for an event that uniquely identifies this event and will
     * match the key from another event.
     *
     * @param event
     *            The event for which to compute the key
     * @return the unique key for this event
     */
    IEventMatchingKey getEventKey(ITmfEvent event);

    /**
     * Verifies whether a trace has all required events to match using this
     * class
     *
     * @param trace
     *            The trace
     * @return Whether the trace has all required information
     */
    boolean canMatchTrace(ITmfTrace trace);

    /**
     * Return all matching types this definition covers
     *
     * @return an array of matching types
     */
    MatchingType[] getApplicableMatchingTypes();

}