/*
 * Copyright  2000-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
 *
 *  Licensed 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.apache.bcel.generic;

/**
 * Denotes that an instruction may start the process of loading and resolving
 * the referenced class in the Virtual Machine.
 * 
 * @version $Id: LoadClass.java 386056 2006-03-15 11:31:56Z tcurdt $
 * @author <A HREF="mailto:m.dahm@gmx.de">M. Dahm</A>
 */
public interface LoadClass {

	/**
	 * Returns the ObjectType of the referenced class or interface that may be
	 * loaded and resolved.
	 * 
	 * @return object type that may be loaded or null if a primitive is
	 *         referenced
	 */
	public ObjectType getLoadClassType(ConstantPoolGen cpg);

	/**
	 * Returns the type associated with this instruction. LoadClass instances
	 * are always typed, but this type does not always refer to the type of the
	 * class or interface that it possibly forces to load. For example, GETFIELD
	 * would return the type of the field and not the type of the class where
	 * the field is defined. If no class is forced to be loaded, <B>null</B> is
	 * returned. An example for this is an ANEWARRAY instruction that creates an
	 * int[][].
	 * 
	 * @see #getLoadClassType(ConstantPoolGen)
	 */
	public Type getType(ConstantPoolGen cpg);
}
