001/**
002 *
003 * Copyright 2003-2007 Jive Software.
004 *
005 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
006 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
007 * 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
018package org.jivesoftware.smack.provider;
019
020import org.jivesoftware.smack.packet.PacketExtension;
021import org.xmlpull.v1.XmlPullParser;
022
023/**
024 * An interface for parsing custom packets extensions. Each PacketExtensionProvider must
025 * be registered with the ProviderManager class for it to be used. Every implementation
026 * of this interface <b>must</b> have a public, no-argument constructor.
027 *
028 * @author Matt Tucker
029 */
030public interface PacketExtensionProvider {
031
032    /**
033     * Parse an extension sub-packet and create a PacketExtension instance. At
034     * the beginning of the method call, the xml parser will be positioned on the
035     * opening element of the packet extension. At the end of the method call, the
036     * parser <b>must</b> be positioned on the closing element of the packet extension.
037     *
038     * @param parser an XML parser.
039     * @return a new IQ instance.
040     * @throws java.lang.Exception if an error occurs parsing the XML.
041     */
042    public PacketExtension parseExtension(XmlPullParser parser) throws Exception;
043}