/*
 * 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.assembly;

/**
 * Represents a service. Services are used to publish services provided by
 * implementations, so that they are addressable by other components.
 * 
 * @version $Rev$ $Date$
 */
public interface Service extends AbstractService, Contract {
	
	/**
	 * Allows this Service to be set as a Consumer
	 * @param aConsumer - the consumer to set for this Service
	 */
	void setConsumer( Consumer aConsumer );
	
	/**
	 * Gets the consumer for this Service
	 * @return the Consumer - null if no Consumer is set
	 */
	Consumer getConsumer();
	
	/**
	 * Returns whether this Service is a Consumer
	 * @return true if the Service is a consumer, false otherwise
	 */
	boolean isConsumer();

}