/*
 * 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.openjpa.util;

import org.apache.openjpa.lib.util.MultiClassLoader;

/**
 * Interface to customize the loading of classes under OpenJPA.
 *
 * @since 0.3.0
 * @author Marc Prud'hommeaux
 * @author Abe White
 */
public interface ClassResolver {

    /**
     * Return a class loader that can be used to load classes and resources.
     * This can be a standard class loader, or a customized loader such
     * as a {@link MultiClassLoader}.
     *
     * @param contextClass the context class; may be null if no context class
     * @param envLoader the thread's context class loader when the
     * persistence environment (i.e. broker)
     * was obtained; may be null if operating outside
     * the context of persistence environment
     */
    public ClassLoader getClassLoader(Class<?> contextClass, ClassLoader envLoader);
}
