/*
 * Copyright (C) 2009 eXo Platform SAS.
 *
 * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
 * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This software 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
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
 * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
 * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
 */
package org.exoplatform.services.cache;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Collection;

/**
 * Created by The eXo Platform SAS<br>
 * The cache service.
 *
 * @author : <a href="tuan08@users.sourceforge.net">Tuan Nguyen</a>.
 *
 * @LevelAPI Platform
 */
public interface CacheService
{

   /**
    * Adds a cache configuration plugin.
    *
    * @param plugin the plugin
    */
   public void addExoCacheConfig(ExoCacheConfigPlugin plugin);

   /**
    * Returns a specific cache instance.
    *
    * @param region the cache region
    * @param <K> the key type
    * @param <V> the value type
    * @return the cache
    * @throws NullPointerException if the region argument is null
    * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the region argument length is zero
    */
   public <K extends Serializable, V> ExoCache<K, V> getCacheInstance(String region) throws NullPointerException,
      IllegalArgumentException;

   /**
    * Returns a collection of all the cache instances.
    *
    * @return all the caches
    */
   public Collection<ExoCache<? extends Serializable, ?>> getAllCacheInstances();
}
