View Javadoc
1   /*
2    * $Id$
3    *
4    * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
5    * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
6    * distributed with this work for additional information
7    * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
8    * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
9    * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
10   * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
11   *
12   *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
13   *
14   * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
15   * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
16   * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
17   * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
18   * specific language governing permissions and limitations
19   * under the License.
20   */
21  package org.apache.struts.dispatcher;
22  
23  import java.io.Serializable;
24  
25  import org.apache.struts.action.Action;
26  import org.apache.struts.chain.contexts.ActionContext;
27  
28  /**
29   * This interface defines an intermediate handler that determines what method to
30   * execute in an {@link Action}. Unlike the classical <code>execute</code>
31   * signature, it is up to the dispatcher implementation to determine the
32   * particular arguments and return type.
33   *
34   * @version $Rev$
35   * @since Struts 1.4
36   */
37  public interface Dispatcher extends Serializable {
38  
39      /**
40       * Dispatches to the action referenced by the specified context.
41       *
42       * @param context the current action context
43       * @return the result type, <code>null</code> if the response was handled
44       *         directly, or {@link Void} if the executed method has no return
45       *         signature
46       * @throws Exception if an exception occurs
47       */
48      Object dispatch(ActionContext context) throws Exception;
49  
50  }