/*
 * Copyright 2006 Sascha Weinreuter
 *
 * Licensed 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.intellij.lang.annotations;

import org.jetbrains.annotations.NonNls;

import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.*;

/**
 * Specifies that an element of the program represents a string that is a source code on a specified language.
 * Code editors may use this annotation to enable syntax highlighting, code completion and other features
 * inside the literals that assigned to the annotated variables, passed as arguments to the annotated parameters,
 * or returned from the annotated methods.
 * 
 * This annotation also could be used as a meta-annotation, to define other annotations for convenience. 
 * E.g. the following annotation could be defined to annotate the strings that represent Java methods:
 * 
 * <pre>
 *   &#64;Language(value = "JAVA", prefix = "class X{", suffix = "}")
 *   &#64;interface JavaMethod {}
 * </pre>
 */
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.CLASS)
@Target({ METHOD, FIELD, PARAMETER, LOCAL_VARIABLE, ANNOTATION_TYPE })
public @interface Language {
  /**
   * Language name like "JAVA", "HTML", "XML", "RegExp", etc. 
   * The complete list of supported languages is not specified. However, at least the following languages should be
   * recognized:
   * <ul>
   *   <li>"JAVA" - Java programming language</li>
   *   <li>"HTML" - HTML</li>
   *   <li>"XML" - XML</li>
   *   <li>"RegExp" - Regular expression supported by Java {@link java.util.regex.Pattern}</li>
   * </ul>
   */
  @NonNls String value();

  /**
   * A constant prefix that is assumed to be implicitly added before the literal. 
   * This helps to apply proper highlighting when the program element represents only a part of the valid program.
   * E.g. if the method parameter accepts a Java method, it could be annotated as
   * {@code void methodProcessor(@Language(value="JAVA", prefix="class X {", suffix="}")}.
   */
  @NonNls String prefix() default "";

  /**
   * A constant suffix that is assumed to be implicitly added after the literal. See {@link #prefix()} for details.
   */
  @NonNls String suffix() default "";
}