/*
 * 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 freemarker.template;

import java.util.List;

import freemarker.core.Environment;
import freemarker.template.utility.DeepUnwrap;

"extended method" template language data type: Objects that act like functions. Their main application is calling Java methods via BeansWrapper, but you can implement this interface to create top-level functions too. They are "extended" compared to the deprecated TemplateMethodModel, which could only accept string parameters. 
In templates they are used like myMethod(1, "foo") or myJavaObject.myJavaMethod(1, "foo"). /**
 * "extended method" template language data type: Objects that act like functions. Their main application is calling
 * Java methods via {@link freemarker.ext.beans.BeansWrapper}, but you can implement this interface to create
 * top-level functions too. They are "extended" compared to the deprecated {@link TemplateMethodModel}, which could only
 * accept string parameters.
 * 
 * <p>In templates they are used like {@code myMethod(1, "foo")} or {@code myJavaObject.myJavaMethod(1, "foo")}.
 */
public interface TemplateMethodModelEx extends TemplateMethodModel {

    
Executes the method call.
 
Params:
arguments – a List of TemplateModel-s, containing the arguments passed to the method. If the implementation absolutely wants to operate on POJOs, it can use the static utility methods in the DeepUnwrap class to easily obtain them. However, unwrapping is not always possible (or not perfectly), and isn't always efficient, so it's recommended to use the original TemplateModel value as much as possible.
Returns:
the return value of the method, or null. If the returned value does not implement TemplateModel, it will be automatically wrapped using the environment's 
    object wrapper./**
     * Executes the method call.
     *  
     * @param arguments a {@link List} of {@link TemplateModel}-s,
     *     containing the arguments passed to the method. If the implementation absolutely wants 
     *     to operate on POJOs, it can use the static utility methods in the {@link DeepUnwrap} 
     *     class to easily obtain them. However, unwrapping is not always possible (or not perfectly), and isn't always
     *     efficient, so it's recommended to use the original {@link TemplateModel} value as much as possible.
     *      
     * @return the return value of the method, or {@code null}. If the returned value
     *     does not implement {@link TemplateModel}, it will be automatically 
     *     wrapped using the {@link Environment#getObjectWrapper() environment's 
     *     object wrapper}.
     */
    public Object exec(List arguments) throws TemplateModelException;
    
}