/**
 * Copyright (c) 2015-2017 by the respective copyright holders.
 *
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 */
package org.openhab.core.items;

/**
 * This Factory creates concrete instances of the known ItemTypes.
 *
 * @author Thomas.Eichstaedt-Engelen
 * @since 0.9.0
 */
public interface ItemFactory {

    /**
     * Creates a new Item instance of type <code>itemTypeName</code> and the name
     * <code>itemName</code>
     *
     * @param itemTypeName
     * @param itemName
     *
     * @return a new Item of type <code>itemTypeName</code> or
     *         <code>null</code> if no matching class is known.
     */
    GenericItem createItem(String itemTypeName, String itemName);

    /**
     * Returns the list of all supported ItemTypes of this Factory.
     *
     * @return the supported ItemTypes
     */
    String[] getSupportedItemTypes();
}
