/* URLStreamHandlerFactory.java -- Maps protocols to URLStreamHandlers
   Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
 
GNU Classpath 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 the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307 USA.

As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to
produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the
resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */

package java.net;

/**
 * Written using on-line Java Platform 1.2 API Specification, as well
 * as "The Java Class Libraries", 2nd edition (Addison-Wesley, 1998).
 * Status:  Believed complete and correct.
 */

/**
 * This interface contains one method which maps the protocol portion of
 * a URL (eg, "http" in "http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/") to a 
 * URLStreamHandler object.
 *
 * @author Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com)
 * @author Warren Levy <warrenl@cygnus.com>
 */
public interface URLStreamHandlerFactory
{
/**
  * This method maps the protocol portion of a URL to a URLStreamHandler
  * object.
  *
  * @param protocol The protocol name to map ("http", "ftp", etc).
  *
  * @return The URLStreamHandler for the specified protocol
  */
URLStreamHandler
createURLStreamHandler(String protocol);

} // interface URLStreamHandlerFactory