ClockSource.java

/*
 * Aphelion
 * Copyright (c) 2013  Joris van der Wel
 * 
 * This file is part of Aphelion
 * 
 * Aphelion is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.
 * 
 * Aphelion 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 General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
 * along with Aphelion.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 * 
 * In addition, the following supplemental terms apply, based on section 7 of
 * the GNU Affero General Public License (version 3):
 * a) Preservation of all legal notices and author attributions
 * b) Prohibition of misrepresentation of the origin of this material, and
 * modified versions are required to be marked in reasonable ways as
 * different from the original version (for example by appending a copyright notice).
 * 
 * Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a
 * combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of the
 * GNU Affero General Public License cover the whole combination.
 * 
 * As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you 
 * permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an 
 * executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules,
 * and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your 
 * choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module,
 * the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent
 * module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library.
 */
package aphelion.shared.event;

import aphelion.shared.swissarmyknife.ThreadSafe;

/**
 *
 * @author Joris
 */
public interface ClockSource
{
        /** This value can only be used to measure relative time and not absolute time.
         * This value may wrap/overflow. (MAX_VALUE -> MIN_VALUE).
         * This value should be immune to system clock changes.
         * Subsequent calls are not guaranteed to be larger or equal to the previous call,
         * the clock source might be a result of a synchronization with a server.
         * @return Relative time in nano seconds (10^-9 seconds)
         */
        @ThreadSafe
        public long nanoTime();
}