/*
 * 
 * Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 * 
 * The contents of this file are subject to the Sun Community Source
 * License v3.0/Jini Technology Specific Attachment v 1.0 (the
 * "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the
 * License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * http://wwws.sun.com/software/jini/licensing/SCSL3_JiniTSA1.html.
 * Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
 * basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
 * the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
 * under the License.
 * 
 * The Reference Code is Jini Technology Core Platform code, v2.0. The
 * Developer of the Reference Code is Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 * 
 * Contributor(s): Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 * 
 * The contents of this file comply with the Jini Technology Core
 * Platform Compatibility Kit, v2.0A.
 * 
 * Tester(s): Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 * 
 * Test Platform(s):
 * Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, Version 1.4.2_03 for Solaris(TM)SPARC/x86
 * Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, Version 1.4.2_03 for Linux (Intel x86)
 * Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, Version 1.4.2_03 for Windows (Intel Platform)
 * 
 */

package com.sun.jini.thread;

/**
 * Executor is an abstraction for a thread factory or thread pool for
 * executing actions asynchronously.
 *
 * @author	Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 * 
 */
public interface Executor {

    /**
     * Executes the given Runnable action asynchronously in some thread.
     *
     * The implementation may create a new thread to execute the action,
     * or it may execute the action in an existing thread.
     *
     * The execution of a given action must not be delayed indefinitely
     * in order to complete execution of a different action passed to a
     * different invocation of this method.  In other words, the
     * implementation must assume that there may be arbitrary dependencies
     * between actions passed to this method, so it needs to be careful
     * to avoid potential deadlock by delaying execution of one action
     * indefinitely until another completes.
     *
     * Also, this method itself must not block, because it may be invoked
     * by code that is serially processing data to produce multiple such
     * arbitrarily-dependent actions that need to be executed.
     *
     * @param	runnable the Runnable action to execute
     *
     * @param	name string to include in the name of the thread used
     * to execute the action
     */
    void execute(Runnable runnable, String name);
}
