/* *******************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2005 Contributors.
 * 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://eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html 
 *  
 * Contributors: 
 *   Adrian Colyer			Initial implementation
 * ******************************************************************/
package org.aspectj.weaver.tools;

The result of asking a PointcutExpression to match at a shadow (method execution,
handler, constructor call, and so on).
/**
 * The result of asking a PointcutExpression to match at a shadow (method execution,
 * handler, constructor call, and so on).
 *
 */
public interface ShadowMatch {

	
True iff the pointcut expression will match any join point at this
shadow (for example, any call to the given method).
/**
	 * True iff the pointcut expression will match any join point at this
	 * shadow (for example, any call to the given method).
	 */
	boolean alwaysMatches();
	
	
True if the pointcut expression may match some join points at this
shadow (for example, some calls to the given method may match, depending
on the type of the caller).
If alwaysMatches is true, then maybeMatches is always true.
/**
	 * True if the pointcut expression may match some join points at this
	 * shadow (for example, some calls to the given method may match, depending
	 * on the type of the caller).
	 * <p>If alwaysMatches is true, then maybeMatches is always true.</p>
	 */
	boolean maybeMatches();
	
	
True iff the pointcut expression can never match any join point at this
shadow (for example, the pointcut will never match a call to the given
method).
/**
	 * True iff the pointcut expression can never match any join point at this
	 * shadow (for example, the pointcut will never match a call to the given
	 * method).
	 */
	boolean neverMatches();
	
	
Return the result of matching a join point at this shadow with the given
this, target, and args.
Params:
thisObject –  the object bound to this at the join point
targetObject – the object bound to target at the join point
args – the arguments at the join point
Returns:
/**
	 * Return the result of matching a join point at this shadow with the given
	 * this, target, and args.
	 * @param thisObject  the object bound to this at the join point
	 * @param targetObject the object bound to target at the join point
	 * @param args the arguments at the join point
	 * @return
	 */
	JoinPointMatch matchesJoinPoint(Object thisObject, Object targetObject, Object[] args);
	
	
Set a matching context to be used when matching
join points.
See Also:
MatchingContext/**
	 * Set a matching context to be used when matching
	 * join points.
	 * @see MatchingContext
	 */
	void setMatchingContext(MatchingContext aMatchContext);
}