/*
 This file is part of the software framework JStatCom, 
 a library for building applications for data based analysis.

 Copyright (C) 2000-2005  Markus Kraetzig

 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
 published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the
 License, or (at your option) any later version.

 This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 Lesser General Public License for more details.

 You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
 USA
 */

package com.jstatcom.project;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import javolution37.javolution.xml.XmlElement;
import javolution37.javolution.xml.XmlFormat;

/**
 * Represents all settings that should be stored permanently between different
 * program runs. All settings are stored to an XML file when the program is quit
 * and are automatically retrieved at program start. Settings are handled by the
 * SettingsManager class.
 * 

 * This class only holds a list with an arbitrary number of
 * SettingsElement instances, which are themselves XML
 * serializable classes holding specific types of runtime information.
 * 
 * @author Markus Kraetzig 
 */
public final class Settings {

    private final List settingsList = new ArrayList();

    public static final XmlFormat Settings_XML = new XmlFormat(
            Settings.class) {
        public void format(Settings data, XmlElement xml) {
            for (SettingsElement el : data.settingsList)
                xml.add(el);
        }

        public Settings parse(XmlElement xml) {
            Settings settings = new Settings();
            while (xml.hasNext())
                settings.addSettingsElement((SettingsElement) xml.getNext());
            return settings;
        }
    };

    public Settings() {

    }

    /**
     * Adds a SettingsElement object to this.
     * 
     * @param el
     *            an element representing a certain type of runtime information
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException
     *             if (el == null)
     */
    public void addSettingsElement(SettingsElement el) {
        if (el == null)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Argument was null.");
        settingsList.add(el);
    }

    /**
     * Gets an iterator over all settings elements.
     * 
     * @return settings iterator
     */
    Iterator getSettingsIterator() {
        return settingsList.iterator();
    }

}