/*

 * Copyright (c) 1998, 2001, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.

 *

 * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it

 * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as

 * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates this

 * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided

 * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.

 *

 * This code 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

 * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that

 * accompanied this code).

 *

 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version

 * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,

 * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

 *

 * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA

 * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any

 * questions.

 */

package java.rmi.server;

import java.io.*;

import java.net.*;

/**

 * An <code>RMIClientSocketFactory</code> instance is used by the RMI runtime

 * in order to obtain client sockets for RMI calls.  A remote object can be

 * associated with an <code>RMIClientSocketFactory</code> when it is

 * created/exported via the constructors or <code>exportObject</code> methods

 * of <code>java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject</code> and

 * <code>java.rmi.activation.Activatable</code> .

 *

 * <p>An <code>RMIClientSocketFactory</code> instance associated with a remote

 * object will be downloaded to clients when the remote object's reference is

 * transmitted in an RMI call.  This <code>RMIClientSocketFactory</code> will

 * be used to create connections to the remote object for remote method calls.

 *

 * <p>An <code>RMIClientSocketFactory</code> instance can also be associated

 * with a remote object registry so that clients can use custom socket

 * communication with a remote object registry.

 *

 * <p>An implementation of this interface should be serializable and

 * should implement {@link Object#equals} to return <code>true</code> when

 * passed an instance that represents the same (functionally equivalent)

 * client socket factory, and <code>false</code> otherwise (and it should also

 * implement {@link Object#hashCode} consistently with its

 * <code>Object.equals</code> implementation).

 *

 * @author  Ann Wollrath

 * @author  Peter Jones

 * @since   1.2

 * @see     java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject

 * @see     java.rmi.activation.Activatable

 * @see     java.rmi.registry.LocateRegistry

 */

public interface RMIClientSocketFactory {

    /**

     * Create a client socket connected to the specified host and port.

     * @param  host   the host name

     * @param  port   the port number

     * @return a socket connected to the specified host and port.

     * @exception IOException if an I/O error occurs during socket creation

     * @since 1.2

     */

    public Socket createSocket(String host, int port)

        throws IOException;

}