/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 * distributed with this work for additional information
 * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.    
 */

package org.apache.tuscany.sca.wicket;
import javax.servlet.ServletContext;

import org.apache.wicket.IClusterable;


/**
 * Interface representing object that can locate a spring context. The implementation should take up
 * little room when serialized.
 * 
 * SpringObjectLocator uses this interface to locate the spring context so that it in turn can
 * locate a bean.
 * 
 * Ideal implementations use a static lookup to locate the context.
 * 
 * For Example:
 * 
 * <pre>
 * class SpringContextLocator implements ISpringContextLocator
 * {
 *      public ApplicationContext getSpringContext()
 *      {
 *              //MyApplication is the subclass of WebApplication used by the application
 *              return ((MyApplication)Application.get()).getContext();
 *      }
 * }
 * </pre>
 * 
 * @see SpringBeanLocator
 * 
 * @author Igor Vaynberg (ivaynberg)
 * 
 */
public interface IContextLocator extends IClusterable
{
        /**
         * Getter for spring application context
         * 
         * @return spring application context
         */
        ServletContext getServletContext();
}