content: /*
   * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
   * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
   * distributed with this work for additional information
   * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
   * to you 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.apache.shiro.lang.util;
  
  /**
   * Generics-aware interface supporting the
   * <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_method_pattern">Factory Method</a> design pattern.
   *
   * @param <T> The type of the instance returned by the Factory implementation.
   * @since 1.0
   */
  public interface Factory<T> {
  
      /**
       * Returns an instance of the required type.  The implementation determines whether or not a new or cached
       * instance is created every time this method is called.
       *
       * @return an instance of the required type.
       */
      T getInstance();
  }
  