/* Copyright (c) 2000-2006 hamcrest.org
*/
package org.hamcrest;
/**
* A matcher over acceptable values.
* A matcher is able to describe itself to give feedback when it fails.
* <p/>
* Matcher implementations should <b>NOT directly implement this interface</b>.
* Instead, <b>extend</b> the {@link BaseMatcher} abstract class,
* which will ensure that the Matcher API can grow to support
* new features and remain compatible with all Matcher implementations.
* <p/>
* For easy access to common Matcher implementations, use the static factory
* methods in {@link CoreMatchers}.
*
* @see CoreMatchers
* @see BaseMatcher
*/
public interface Matcher<T> extends SelfDescribing {
/**
* Evaluates the matcher for argument <var>item</var>.
* <p/>
* This method matches against Object, instead of the generic type T. This is
* because the caller of the Matcher does not know at runtime what the type is
* (because of type erasure with Java generics). It is down to the implementations
* to check the correct type.
*
* @param item the object against which the matcher is evaluated.
* @return <code>true</code> if <var>item</var> matches, otherwise <code>false</code>.
*
* @see BaseMatcher
*/
boolean matches(Object item);
/**
* Generate a description of why the matcher has not accepted the item.
* The description will be part of a larger description of why a matching
* failed, so it should be concise.
* This method assumes that <code>matches(item)</code> is false, but
* will not check this.
*
* @param item The item that the Matcher has rejected.
* @param mismatchDescription
* The description to be built or appended to.
*/
void describeMismatch(Object item, Description mismatchDescription);
/**
* This method simply acts a friendly reminder not to implement Matcher directly and
* instead extend BaseMatcher. It's easy to ignore JavaDoc, but a bit harder to ignore
* compile errors .
*
* @see Matcher for reasons why.
* @see BaseMatcher
* @deprecated to make
*/
@Deprecated
void _dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_();
}
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