/***********************************************************************************
 *                                                                                 *
 * Voreen - The Volume Rendering Engine                                            *
 *                                                                                 *
 * Copyright (C) 2005-2012 University of Muenster, Germany.                        *
 * Visualization and Computer Graphics Group <http://viscg.uni-muenster.de>        *
 * For a list of authors please refer to the file "CREDITS.txt".                   *
 *                                                                                 *
 * This file is part of the Voreen software package. Voreen is free software:      *
 * you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General     *
 * Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.          *
 *                                                                                 *
 * Voreen 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 General Public License in the file   *
 * "LICENSE.txt" along with this file. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. *
 *                                                                                 *
 * For non-commercial academic use see the license exception specified in the file *
 * "LICENSE-academic.txt". To get information about commercial licensing please    *
 * contact the authors.                                                            *
 *                                                                                 *
 ***********************************************************************************/

#ifndef VRN_METADATABASE_H
#define VRN_METADATABASE_H

#include "voreen/core/io/serialization/abstractserializable.h"

namespace voreen {

/**
 * Marker interface for meta data classes that are is used to associate data
 * from outside the core with core data for serialization and deserialization.
 *
 * @note When adding a custom meta data type in a module, you also have to provide
 *       a corresponding SerializableFactory that instantiates the custom type.
 *
 * @see VoreenModule::registerSerializerFactory, MetaDataFactory
 */
class VRN_CORE_API MetaDataBase : public AbstractSerializable {
public:
    virtual std::string getClassName() const = 0;
    virtual Serializable* create() const = 0;
    virtual MetaDataBase* clone() const = 0;
    virtual std::string toString() const = 0;
    virtual std::string toString(const std::string& /*component*/) const = 0;
};

} // namespace

#endif // VRN_METADATABASE_H
