CTK/Libs/CommandLineModules/Core/ctkCmdLineModuleBackend.h

/*=============================================================================

  Library: CTK

  Copyright (c) German Cancer Research Center,
    Division of Medical and Biological Informatics

  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.

=============================================================================*/

#ifndef CTKCMDLINEMODULEBACKEND_H
#define CTKCMDLINEMODULEBACKEND_H

#include "ctkCommandLineModulesCoreExport.h"

class ctkCmdLineModuleFrontend;
class ctkCmdLineModuleFuture;

template<typename T> class QList;
class QUrl;

struct CTK_CMDLINEMODULECORE_EXPORT ctkCmdLineModuleBackend
{

  ~ctkCmdLineModuleBackend();

  virtual QString name() const = 0;
  virtual QString description() const = 0;

  virtual QList<QString> schemes() const = 0;

  virtual qint64 timeStamp(const QUrl& location) const = 0;

  /**
   * @brief Get the XML parameter description from the given location.
   * @param location The location URL specifying the module.
   * @return The raw XML parameter description.
   *
   * This method may be concurrently called by the ctkCmdLineModuleManager and
   * must be thread-safe.
   *
   */
  virtual QByteArray rawXmlDescription(const QUrl& location) = 0;

protected:

  friend class ctkCmdLineModuleManager;

  virtual ctkCmdLineModuleFuture run(ctkCmdLineModuleFrontend* frontend) = 0;

  //virtual ctkCmdLineModule* createModule(const QString& scheme) = 0;

};

#endif // CTKCMDLINEMODULEBACKEND_H