001    /**
002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003     * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
004     * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005     * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006     * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007     * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
008     *
009     *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010     *
011     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014     * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015     * limitations under the License.
016     */
017    package org.apache.xbean.server.loader;
018    
019    import org.apache.xbean.kernel.ServiceName;
020    import org.apache.xbean.kernel.Kernel;
021    
022    /**
023     * Loaders load configurations into a Kernel.
024     * @author Dain Sundstrom
025     * @version $Id$
026     * @since 2.0
027     */
028    public interface Loader {
029        /**
030         * Gets the kernel in which configuraitons are loaded.
031         * @return the kernel in which configurations are loaded
032         */
033        Kernel getKernel();
034    
035        /**
036         * Loads the specified configuration into the kernel.  The location passed to this method is specific loader
037         * implementation. It is important to remember that a loader only loads the configuration into the kernel and
038         * does not start the configuration.
039         *
040         * @param location the location of the configuration
041         * @return the service name of the configuration added to the kernel
042         * @throws Exception if a problem occurs while loading the configuration
043         */
044        ServiceName load(String location) throws Exception;
045    }