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  /*
   *
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   *
   * Copyright (c) 2002 World Wide Web Consortium,
   * (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de
   * Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All
   * Rights Reserved. This program is distributed under the W3C's Software
   * Intellectual Property License. This program 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 W3C License http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ for more details.
   */
  
  package org.w3c.dom.xpath;
  
  
  import org.w3c.dom.Node;
  import org.w3c.dom.DOMException;
  
  /**
   *  The evaluation of XPath expressions is provided by
   * <code>XPathEvaluator</code>. In a DOM implementation which supports the
   * XPath 3.0 feature, as described above, the <code>XPathEvaluator</code>
   * interface will be implemented on the same object which implements the
   * <code>Document</code> interface permitting it to be obtained by the usual
   * binding-specific method such as casting or by using the DOM Level 3
   * getInterface method. In this case the implementation obtained from the
   * Document supports the XPath DOM module and is compatible with the XPath
   * 1.0 specification.
   * <p>Evaluation of expressions with specialized extension functions or
   * variables may not work in all implementations and is, therefore, not
   * portable. <code>XPathEvaluator</code> implementations may be available
   * from other sources that could provide specific support for specialized
   * extension functions or variables as would be defined by other
   * specifications.
   * <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/2002/08/WD-DOM-Level-3-XPath-20020820'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 XPath Specification</a>.
   */
  public interface XPathEvaluator {
      /**
       * Creates a parsed XPath expression with resolved namespaces. This is
       * useful when an expression will be reused in an application since it
       * makes it possible to compile the expression string into a more
       * efficient internal form and preresolve all namespace prefixes which
       * occur within the expression.
       * @param expression The XPath expression string to be parsed.
       * @param resolver The <code>resolver</code> permits translation of
       *   prefixes within the XPath expression into appropriate namespace URIs
       *   . If this is specified as <code>null</code>, any namespace prefix
       *   within the expression will result in <code>DOMException</code>
       *   being thrown with the code <code>NAMESPACE_ERR</code>.
       * @return The compiled form of the XPath expression.
       * @exception XPathException
       *   INVALID_EXPRESSION_ERR: Raised if the expression is not legal
       *   according to the rules of the <code>XPathEvaluator</code>i
       * @exception DOMException
       *   NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the expression contains namespace prefixes
       *   which cannot be resolved by the specified
       *   <code>XPathNSResolver</code>.
       */
      public XPathExpression createExpression(String expression,
                                              XPathNSResolver resolver)
              throws XPathException, DOMException;
  
      /**
       * Adapts any DOM node to resolve namespaces so that an XPath expression
       * can be easily evaluated relative to the context of the node where it
       * appeared within the document. This adapter works like the DOM Level 3
       * method <code>lookupNamespaceURI</code> on nodes in resolving the
       * namespaceURI from a given prefix using the current information
       * available in the node's hierarchy at the time lookupNamespaceURI is
       * called. also correctly resolving the implicit xml prefix.
       * @param nodeResolver The node to be used as a context for namespace
       *   resolution.
       * @return <code>XPathNSResolver</code> which resolves namespaces with
       *   respect to the definitions in scope for a specified node.
       */
      public XPathNSResolver createNSResolver(Node nodeResolver);
  
      /**
       * Evaluates an XPath expression string and returns a result of the
       * specified type if possible.
       * @param expression The XPath expression string to be parsed and
       *   evaluated.
       * @param contextNode The <code>context</code> is context node for the
       *   evaluation of this XPath expression. If the XPathEvaluator was
       *   obtained by casting the <code>Document</code> then this must be
       *   owned by the same document and must be a <code>Document</code>,
       *   <code>Element</code>, <code>Attribute</code>, <code>Text</code>,
       *   <code>CDATASection</code>, <code>Comment</code>,
       *   <code>ProcessingInstruction</code>, or <code>XPathNamespace</code>
       *   node. If the context node is a <code>Text</code> or a
       *   <code>CDATASection</code>, then the context is interpreted as the
       *   whole logical text node as seen by XPath, unless the node is empty
       *   in which case it may not serve as the XPath context.
       * @param resolver The <code>resolver</code> permits translation of
       *   prefixes within the XPath expression into appropriate namespace URIs
       *   . If this is specified as <code>null</code>, any namespace prefix
       *   within the expression will result in <code>DOMException</code>
       *   being thrown with the code <code>NAMESPACE_ERR</code>.
       * @param type If a specific <code>type</code> is specified, then the
       *   result will be returned as the corresponding type.For XPath 1.0
       *   results, this must be one of the codes of the
       *   <code>XPathResult</code> interface.
       * @param result The <code>result</code> specifies a specific result
       *   object which may be reused and returned by this method. If this is
       *   specified as <code>null</code>or the implementation does not reuse
       *   the specified result, a new result object will be constructed and
       *   returned.For XPath 1.0 results, this object will be of type
       *   <code>XPathResult</code>.
       * @return The result of the evaluation of the XPath expression.For XPath
       *   1.0 results, this object will be of type <code>XPathResult</code>.
       * @exception XPathException
       *   INVALID_EXPRESSION_ERR: Raised if the expression is not legal
       *   according to the rules of the <code>XPathEvaluator</code>i
       *   <br>TYPE_ERR: Raised if the result cannot be converted to return the
       *   specified type.
       * @exception DOMException
       *   NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the expression contains namespace prefixes
       *   which cannot be resolved by the specified
       *   <code>XPathNSResolver</code>.
       *   <br>WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: The Node is from a document that is not
       *   supported by this <code>XPathEvaluator</code>.
       *   <br>NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: The Node is not a type permitted as an XPath
       *   context node or the request type is not permitted by this
       *   <code>XPathEvaluator</code>.
       */
      public Object evaluate(String expression,
                             Node contextNode,
                             XPathNSResolver resolver,
                             short type,
                             Object result)
              throws XPathException, DOMException;
  
  }