All Known Implementing Classes:

WorkflowManagerDictionary

public interface Dictionary

Version:

$Revision$

A Dictionary for create Catalog understandable Terms from Metadata

Author:

bfoster

TermBucket lookup(Metadata metadata)
                  throws CatalogDictionaryException

Given a Metadata object a lookup call to a given dictionary will always return the same TermBucket. However, calls to several Dictionary's lookup method may return different TermBuckets for a given Metadata object.

Parameters:

metadata - The Metadata for which a TermBucket will be created

Returns:

TermBucket representing the given Metadata for this Dictionary or null if Metadata is not recognized by this Dictionary

Throws:

CatalogDictionaryException

Metadata reverseLookup(TermBucket termBucket)
                       throws CatalogDictionaryException

Generates Metadata for the given TermBucket. A call to lookup(Metadata) and then reverseLookup(TermBucket) may not give you back the original Metadata because lookup may ignore key/values in Metadata for which it does not understand.

Parameters:

termBucket - The TermBucket for which Metadata will be created

Returns:

Metadata for the given TermBucket. If the TermBucket is not understood, then an empty Metadata object should be returned.

Throws:

CatalogDictionaryException

boolean understands(QueryExpression queryExpression)
                    throws CatalogDictionaryException

Parameters:

queryExpression -

Returns:

Throws:

CatalogDictionaryException