package org.greenstone.gsdl3.comms;

import org.greenstone.gsdl3.core.ModuleInterface;
import org.greenstone.gsdl3.util.*;

//XML packages
import org.w3c.dom.Node;

/** Communicator - base class for Modules that talk via some protocol to other modules
 *
 */
abstract public class Communicator
    implements ModuleInterface {

    /** home directory of local site */
    protected String site_home_=null;
    /** name of local site */
    protected String local_site_name_ = null;
    /** name of site to connect to */
    protected String connection_name_=null;
    /** address of site to connect to */
    protected String connection_address_=null;
    /** converter for String to DOM and vice versa */
    protected XMLConverter converter_= null;

    public Communicator() {
	converter_ = new XMLConverter();
    }
    public void setSiteHome(String home) {
	site_home_ = home;
    }
    public void setSiteName(String name) {
	local_site_name_ = name;
    }

    public void setConnectionName(String name) {
	connection_name_=name;
    }

    // format of address depends on connection type
    public void setConnectionAddress(String address){
	connection_address_ = address;
    }
 
    abstract public boolean configure(); 

    abstract public String process(String xml_in); 

    abstract public Node process(Node xml_in);
}