/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2004 Actuate Corporation.
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
 *  Actuate Corporation  - initial API and implementation
 *******************************************************************************/

package org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.core;

import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.core.DesignElement;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.core.Module;

/**
 * Interface to do all managements about the element names.
 */

public interface INameManager
{

	/**
	 * Gets the host module of this name manager. The host module is what adapts
	 * all the managements for element names to assure that all the child
	 * elements have a unqiue name.
	 * 
	 * @return the host module of this name manager
	 */

	Module getHostModule( );

	/**
	 * Makes a unique name for the given element.
	 * 
	 * @param element
	 *            the element to make a unique name
	 */

	void makeUniqueName( DesignElement element );

	/**
	 * Clears the data in name manage and re-initialize it.
	 * 
	 */

	void clear( );

	/**
	 * Deletes the element from the name manager.
	 * 
	 * @param element
	 *            the element to drop
	 */

	void dropElement( DesignElement element );

	/**
	 * Returns a unique name for the given element.
	 * 
	 * @param element
	 *            the given element.
	 * 
	 * @return unique name.
	 */

	String getUniqueName( DesignElement element );
}
