/* Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 Acegi Technology Pty Limited

  *

  * Licensed 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.acegisecurity.context;

 /**

  * A strategy for storing security context information against a thread.

  *

  * <p>

  * The preferred strategy is loaded by {@link

  * org.acegisecurity.context.SecurityContextHolder}.

  * </p>

  *

  * @author Ben Alex

  * @version $Id: SecurityContextHolderStrategy.java 1784 2007-02-24 21:00:24Z luke_t $

  */

 public interface SecurityContextHolderStrategy {

     //~ Methods ========================================================================================================

     /**

      * Clears the current context.

      */

     void clearContext();

     /**

      * Obtains the current context.

      *

      * @return a context (never <code>null</code> - create a default implementation if necessary)

      */

     SecurityContext getContext();

     /**

      * Sets the current context.

      *

      * @param context to the new argument (should never be <code>null</code>, although implementations must check if

      *        <code>null</code> has been passed and throw an <code>IllegalArgumentException</code> in such cases)

      */

     void setContext(SecurityContext context);

 }