/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.apache.commons.configuration2.builder;

import org.apache.commons.configuration2.ImmutableConfiguration;
import org.apache.commons.configuration2.event.EventSource;
import org.apache.commons.configuration2.ex.ConfigurationException;

 Definition of an interface for objects that can create ImmutableConfiguration or Configuration objects of a specific type. 
 This interface defines an abstract way of creating a ImmutableConfiguration object. It does not assume any specific way of how this is done; this is completely in the responsibility of an implementation class. There is just a single method that returns the configuration constructed by this builder. 
 Note: ImmutableConfiguration is just the base interface for all configuration objects. So that the return type of the getConfiguration() method is ImmutableConfiguration does not mean that only immutable configurations can be created. 
Type parameters:
<T> – the concrete type of the ImmutableConfiguration class produced by this builder
Since:
2.0/**
 * <p>
 * Definition of an interface for objects that can create {@link ImmutableConfiguration}
 * or {@link org.apache.commons.configuration2.Configuration Configuration} objects of a
 * specific type.
 * </p>
 * <p>
 * This interface defines an abstract way of creating a {@code ImmutableConfiguration}
 * object. It does not assume any specific way of how this is done; this is
 * completely in the responsibility of an implementation class. There is just a
 * single method that returns the configuration constructed by this builder.
 * </p>
 * <p>
 * Note: {@code ImmutableConfiguration} is just the base interface for all configuration
 * objects. So that the return type of the {@code getConfiguration()} method is
 * {@code ImmutableConfiguration} does not mean that only immutable configurations can
 * be created.
 * </p>
 *
 * @since 2.0
 * @param <T> the concrete type of the {@code ImmutableConfiguration} class produced by
 *        this builder
 */
public interface ConfigurationBuilder<T extends ImmutableConfiguration> extends EventSource
{
    
Returns the configuration provided by this builder. An implementation has to perform all necessary steps for creating and initializing a ImmutableConfiguration object. 
Throws:
ConfigurationException – if an error occurs
Returns:
the configuration/**
     * Returns the configuration provided by this builder. An implementation has
     * to perform all necessary steps for creating and initializing a
     * {@code ImmutableConfiguration} object.
     *
     * @return the configuration
     * @throws ConfigurationException if an error occurs
     */
    T getConfiguration() throws ConfigurationException;
}