    001/*
    002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
    003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
    004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
    005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
    006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
    007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    008 *
    009 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    010 *
    011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    015 * limitations under the License.
    016 */
    017package org.apache.commons.text;
    018
    019import java.text.Format;
    020import java.util.Locale;
    021
    022/**
    023 * Format factory.
    024 *
    025 * @since 1.0
    026 */
    027public interface FormatFactory {
    028
    029    /**
    030     * Create or retrieve a format instance.
    031     *
    032     * @param name The format type name
    033     * @param arguments Arguments used to create the format instance. This allows the
    034     *                  <code>FormatFactory</code> to implement the "format style"
    035     *                  concept from <code>java.text.MessageFormat</code>.
    036     * @param locale The locale, may be null
    037     * @return The format instance
    038     */
    039    Format getFormat(String name, String arguments, Locale locale);
    040
    041}