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 * DO NOT REMOVE OR ALTER!

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/*

 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more

 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with

 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.

 * The ASF 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

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package com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util;

import java.util.Locale;

import java.util.MissingResourceException;

/**

 * This interface provides a generic message formatting mechanism and

 * is useful for producing messages that must be localed and/or formatted

 * with replacement text.

 *

 * @see com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter

 *

 * @author Andy Clark

 *

 */

public interface MessageFormatter {

    //

    // MessageFormatter methods

    //

    /**

     * Formats a message with the specified arguments using the given

     * locale information.

     *

     * @param locale    The locale of the message.

     * @param key       The message key.

     * @param arguments The message replacement text arguments. The order

     *                  of the arguments must match that of the placeholders

     *                  in the actual message.

     *

     * @return Returns the formatted message.

     *

     * @throws MissingResourceException Thrown if the message with the

     *                                  specified key cannot be found.

     */

    public String formatMessage(Locale locale, String key, Object[] arguments)

        throws MissingResourceException;

} // interface MessageFormatter