Source for org.w3c.dom.xpath.XPathExpression

   1: /*
   2:  * Copyright (c) 2004 World Wide Web Consortium,
   3:  *
   4:  * (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, European Research Consortium for
   5:  * Informatics and Mathematics, Keio University). All Rights Reserved. This
   6:  * work is distributed under the W3C(r) Software License [1] in the hope that
   7:  * it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
   8:  * warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
   9:  *
  10:  * [1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231
  11:  */
  12: 
  13: package org.w3c.dom.xpath;
  14: 
  15: import org.w3c.dom.Node;
  16: import org.w3c.dom.DOMException;
  17: 
  18: /**
  19:  * The <code>XPathExpression</code> interface represents a parsed and resolved 
  20:  * XPath expression.
  21:  * <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-DOM-Level-3-XPath-20040226'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 XPath Specification</a>.
  22:  */
  23: public interface XPathExpression {
  24:     /**
  25:      * Evaluates this XPath expression and returns a result.
  26:      * @param contextNode The <code>context</code> is context node for the 
  27:      *   evaluation of this XPath expression.If the XPathEvaluator was 
  28:      *   obtained by casting the <code>Document</code> then this must be 
  29:      *   owned by the same document and must be a <code>Document</code>, 
  30:      *   <code>Element</code>, <code>Attribute</code>, <code>Text</code>, 
  31:      *   <code>CDATASection</code>, <code>Comment</code>, 
  32:      *   <code>ProcessingInstruction</code>, or <code>XPathNamespace</code> 
  33:      *   node.If the context node is a <code>Text</code> or a 
  34:      *   <code>CDATASection</code>, then the context is interpreted as the 
  35:      *   whole logical text node as seen by XPath, unless the node is empty 
  36:      *   in which case it may not serve as the XPath context.
  37:      * @param type If a specific <code>type</code> is specified, then the 
  38:      *   result will be coerced to return the specified type relying on 
  39:      *   XPath conversions and fail if the desired coercion is not possible. 
  40:      *   This must be one of the type codes of <code>XPathResult</code>.
  41:      * @param result The <code>result</code> specifies a specific result 
  42:      *   object which may be reused and returned by this method. If this is 
  43:      *   specified as <code>null</code>or the implementation does not reuse 
  44:      *   the specified result, a new result object will be constructed and 
  45:      *   returned.For XPath 1.0 results, this object will be of type 
  46:      *   <code>XPathResult</code>.
  47:      * @return The result of the evaluation of the XPath expression.For XPath 
  48:      *   1.0 results, this object will be of type <code>XPathResult</code>.
  49:      * @exception XPathException
  50:      *   TYPE_ERR: Raised if the result cannot be converted to return the 
  51:      *   specified type.
  52:      * @exception DOMException
  53:      *   WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: The Node is from a document that is not supported 
  54:      *   by the XPathEvaluator that created this <code>XPathExpression</code>
  55:      *   .
  56:      *   <br>NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: The Node is not a type permitted as an XPath 
  57:      *   context node or the request type is not permitted by this 
  58:      *   <code>XPathExpression</code>.
  59:      */
  60:     public Object evaluate(Node contextNode, 
  61:                            short type, 
  62:                            Object result)
  63:                            throws XPathException, DOMException;
  64: 
  65: }