source: trunk/yao/share/antlr-2.7.7/lib/csharp/antlr.runtime/antlr/ASTNodeCreator.cs @ 1

namespace antlr
{
        using System;
        using AST               = antlr.collections.AST;

        /*ANTLR Translator Generator
        * Project led by Terence Parr at http://www.jGuru.com
        * Software rights: http://www.antlr.org/license.html
        *
        * $Id:$
        */
        
        //
        // ANTLR C# Code Generator by Micheal Jordan
        //                            Kunle Odutola       : kunle UNDERSCORE odutola AT hotmail DOT com
        //                            Anthony Oguntimehin
        //

        /// <summary>
        /// A creator of AST node instances.
        /// </summary>
        /// <remarks>
        /// <para>
        /// This class and it's sub-classes exists primarily as an optimization
        /// of the reflection-based mechanism(s) previously used exclusively to 
        /// create instances of AST node objects.
        /// </para>
        /// <para>
        /// Parsers and TreeParsers already use the ASTFactory class in ANTLR whenever
        /// they need to create an AST node objeect. What this class does is to support
        /// performant extensibility of the basic ASTFactory. The ASTFactory can now be
        /// extnded as run-time to support more new AST node types without using needing
        /// to use reflection.
        /// </para>
        /// </remarks>
        public abstract class ASTNodeCreator
        {
                /// <summary>
                /// Returns the fully qualified name of the AST type that this
                /// class creates.
                /// </summary>
                public abstract string ASTNodeTypeName
                {
                        get;
                }

                /// <summary>
                /// Constructs an <see cref="AST"/> instance.
                /// </summary>
                public abstract AST Create();
        }
}