/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), version 2.1 or later
 * See the lgpl.txt file in the root directory or http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html
 */

Defines the integration aspect of Hibernate's second-level caching allowing "caching back ends" to be plugged in as a caching provider. RegionFactory is the main integration contract that defines how Hibernate accesses the provider. It's main contract is the generation of Region references with the requested intent (what will be stored there). Generally a provider will integrate with Hibernate by: 1. implementing the contracts in spi 2. implementing the contracts in support 3. a mix of (1) and (2) The first approach allows for more control of the set up, but also requires more to implement. The second approach tries to minimize the amount of work needed to integrate with caching providers to basically the StorageAccess and DomainDataStorageAccess contracts which are basic read/write type abstractions of the underlying "cache" object - it is a nearly complete implementation aside from providing the proper "storage access" objects. Note: providers may also integrate with Hibernate via Hibernate's JCache support as defined by the `hibernate-jcache` module - no code involved aside from being a JCache implementation properly registered via the JCache spec. /**
 * Defines the integration aspect of Hibernate's second-level
 * caching allowing "caching back ends" to be plugged in as
 * a caching provider.
 *
 * {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi.RegionFactory} is the main
 * integration contract that defines how Hibernate accesses
 * the provider.  It's main contract is the generation of
 * {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi.Region} references with the
 * requested intent (what will be stored there).
 *
 * Generally a provider will integrate with Hibernate by:
 *
 * 		1. implementing the contracts in {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi}
 * 		2. implementing the contracts in {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi.support}
 * 		3. a mix of (1) and (2)
 *
 * The first approach allows for more control of the set up, but also requires more
 * to implement.  The second approach tries to minimize the amount of work needed
 * to integrate with caching providers to basically the
 * {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi.support.StorageAccess} and
 * {@link org.hibernate.cache.spi.support.DomainDataStorageAccess} contracts which
 * are basic read/write type abstractions of the underlying "cache" object - it
 * is a nearly complete implementation aside from providing the proper "storage
 * access" objects.
 *
 * Note: providers may also integrate with Hibernate via
 * Hibernate's JCache support as defined by the `hibernate-jcache`
 * module - no code involved aside from being a JCache implementation
 * properly registered via the JCache spec.
 */
package org.hibernate.cache.spi;