/*
 * Moonlight|3D Copyright (C) 2005 The Moonlight|3D team
 * 
 * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
 * the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
 * Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option)
 * any later version.
 * 
 * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
 * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
 * FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more
 * details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
 * 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
 * 
 * Created on Jan 21, 2005
 */
package ml.core.scripts;

/**
 * This is the interface every script language provider has to
 * implement. The script manager requests script interpreter
 * instances through this interface exclusively.
 * 
 * @author gregor
 */
public interface Language {
	/**
	 * Return the name of the script language. This is supposed
	 * to be a human-readable string.
	 * 
	 * @return name of the script language
	 */
    public String getLanguageName();
    
    /**
     * Create a new interpreter instance or context, depending
     * on how the script interpreter is designed internally.
     * Expected behaviour is that Interpreter instances are
     * isolated from each other in such a form that they
     * cannot influence one another accidentially. This means
     * for example that variable scopes are not shared between
     * Interpreter instances.
     *
     * @return a new Interpreter
     */
    public Interpreter createInterpreter();
    
    /**
     * Test if the file looks like a valid script for this
     * interpreted language. It is sufficient for the test
     * to look at the filename only, looking for specific
     * file extensions like ".py" for Python scripts. In
     * particular, no full syntax check should be performed
     * because all compiletime and runtime errors are to
     * be handled through the Interpreter interface.
     * 
     * @param filename file name to check
     * @return true if the script might be written in this language
     */
    public boolean canExecute(String filename);
}