1 /* Copyright (c) 2000-2006 hamcrest.org 2 */ 3 package org.hamcrest; 4 5 /** 6 * A matcher over acceptable values. 7 * A matcher is able to describe itself to give feedback when it fails. 8 * <p/> 9 * Matcher implementations should <b>NOT directly implement this interface</b>. 10 * Instead, <b>extend</b> the {@link BaseMatcher} abstract class, 11 * which will ensure that the Matcher API can grow to support 12 * new features and remain compatible with all Matcher implementations. 13 * <p/> 14 * For easy access to common Matcher implementations, use the static factory 15 * methods in {@link CoreMatchers}. 16 * 17 * @see CoreMatchers 18 * @see BaseMatcher 19 */ 20 @SuppressWarnings({"unused", "UnusedDeclaration"}) 21 public interface Matcher<T> extends SelfDescribing { 22 23 /** 24 * Evaluates the matcher for argument <var>item</var>. 25 * <p/> 26 * This method matches against Object, instead of the generic type T. This is 27 * because the caller of the Matcher does not know at runtime what the type is 28 * (because of type erasure with Java generics). It is down to the implementations 29 * to check the correct type. 30 * 31 * @param item the object against which the matcher is evaluated. 32 * @return <code>true</code> if <var>item</var> matches, otherwise <code>false</code>. 33 * 34 * @see BaseMatcher 35 */ matches(Object item)36 boolean matches(Object item); 37 38 /** 39 * This method simply acts a friendly reminder not to implement Matcher directly and 40 * instead extend BaseMatcher. It's easy to ignore JavaDoc, but a bit harder to ignore 41 * compile errors . 42 * 43 * @see Matcher for reasons why. 44 * @see BaseMatcher 45 */ _dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_()46 void _dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_(); 47 } 48