/**
 * Licensed to jclouds, Inc. (jclouds) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 * distributed with this work for additional information
 * regarding copyright ownership.  jclouds 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.jclouds.domain;

import java.net.URI;
import java.util.Map;

import org.jclouds.domain.internal.ResourceMetadataImpl;

import com.google.inject.ImplementedBy;

/**
 * Identifies containers, files, etc.
 * 
 * @author Adrian Cole
 */
@ImplementedBy(ResourceMetadataImpl.class)
public interface ResourceMetadata<T extends Enum<T>> extends Comparable<ResourceMetadata<T>> {

   /**
    * Whether this resource is a container, file, node, queue, etc.
    */
   T getType();

   /**
    * Unique identifier of this resource within its enclosing namespace. In some scenarios, this id
    * is not user assignable. For files, this may be an system generated key, or the full path to
    * the resource. ex. /path/to/file.txt
    * 
    */
   String getProviderId();

   /**
    * Name of this resource. Names are dictated by the user. For files, this may be the filename,
    * ex. file.txt
    * 
    */
   String getName();

   /**
    * Physical location of the resource, or null if n/a
    * 
    * ex. us-west-1
    * 
    */
   Location getLocation();

   /**
    * URI used to access this resource
    */
   URI getUri();

   /**
    * Any key-value pairs associated with the resource.
    */
   Map<String, String> getUserMetadata();


}