1 /*
2 * Copyright (C) The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
3 *
4 * This software is published under the terms of the Apache Software License
5 * version 1.1, a copy of which has been included with this distribution in
6 * the LICENSE file.
7 */
8 package org.apache.mailet;
9
10 /***
11 * Draft of a Mailet inteface. The <code>service</code> perform all needed work
12 * on the Mail object. Whatever remains at the end of the service is considered
13 * to need futher processing and will go to the next Mailet if there is one
14 * configured or will go to the error processor if not.
15 * Setting a Mail state (setState(String)) to Mail.GHOST or cleaning its recipient
16 * list has the same meaning that s no more processing is needed.
17 * Instead of creating new messages, the mailet can put a message with new recipients
18 * at the top of the mail queue, or insert them immediately after it's execution
19 * through the API are provided by the MailetContext interface.
20 * <p>
21 * This interface defines methods to initialize a mailet, to service messages, and to
22 * remove a mailet from the server. These are known as life-cycle methods and are called
23 * in the following sequence:
24 * <ol>
25 * <li>The mailet is constructed, then initialized with the init method. </li>
26 * <li>Any messages for the service method are handled.</li>
27 * <li>The mailet is taken out of service, then destroyed with the destroy method,
28 * then garbage collected and finalized.</li>
29 * </ol>
30 * In addition to the life-cycle methods, this interface provides the getMailletConfig
31 * method, which the mailet can use to get any startup information, and the
32 * getMailetInfo method, which allows the mailet to return basic information about itself,
33 * such as author, version, and copyright.
34 *
35 * @version 1.0.0, 24/04/1999
36 * @author Federico Barbieri <scoobie@pop.systemy.it>
37 * @author Stefano Mazzocchi <stefano@apache.org>
38 * @author Pierpaolo Fumagalli <pier@apache.org>
39 * @author Serge Knystautas <sergek@lokitech.com>
40 */
41 public interface Mailet {
42
43 /***
44 * Called by the mailet container to indicate to a mailet that the
45 * mailet is being taken out of service. This method is only called once
46 * all threads within the mailet's service method have exited or after a
47 * timeout period has passed. After the mailet container calls this method,
48 * it will not call the service method again on this mailet.
49 * <p>
50 * This method gives the mailet an opportunity to clean up any resources that
51 * are being held (for example, memory, file handles, threads) and make sure
52 * that any persistent state is synchronized with the mailet's current state in memory.
53 */
54 void destroy();
55
56 /***
57 * Returns information about the mailet, such as author, version, and
58 * copyright.
59 * <p>
60 * The string that this method returns should be plain text and not markup
61 * of any kind (such as HTML, XML, etc.).
62 *
63 * @return a String containing servlet information
64 */
65 String getMailetInfo();
66
67 /***
68 * Returns a MailetConfig object, which contains initialization and
69 * startup parameters for this mailet.
70 * <p>
71 * Implementations of this interface are responsible for storing the MailetConfig
72 * object so that this method can return it. The GenericMailet class, which implements
73 * this interface, already does this.
74 *
75 * @return the MailletConfig object that initializes this mailet
76 */
77 MailetConfig getMailetConfig();
78
79 /***
80 * Called by the mailet container to indicate to a mailet that the
81 * mailet is being placed into service.
82 * <p>
83 * The mailet container calls the init method exactly once after
84 * instantiating the mailet. The init method must complete successfully
85 * before the mailet can receive any requests.
86 *
87 * @param config - a MailetConfig object containing the mailet's configuration
88 * and initialization parameters
89 * @throws MessagingException - if an exception has occurred that interferes with
90 * the mailet's normal operation
91 */
92 void init(MailetConfig config) throws javax.mail.MessagingException;
93
94 /***
95 * Called by the mailet container to allow the mailet to process to
96 * a message message.
97 * <p>
98 * This method is only called after the mailet's init() method has completed
99 * successfully.
100 * <p>
101 * Mailets typically run inside multithreaded mailet containers that can handle
102 * multiple requests concurrently. Developers must be aware to synchronize access
103 * to any shared resources such as files, network connections, and as well as the
104 * mailet's class and instance variables. More information on multithreaded
105 * programming in Java is available in <a href="http://java.sun.com/Series/Tutorial/java/threads/multithreaded.html">the
106 * Java tutorial on multi-threaded programming</a>.
107 *
108 * @param mail - the Mail object that contains the message and routing information
109 * @throws javax.mail.MessagingException - if an message or address parsing exception occurs or
110 * an exception that interferes with the mailet's normal operation
111 */
112 void service(Mail mail) throws javax.mail.MessagingException;
113 }
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