IConnectionDescriptor.cs

// Copyright (c) 2004-2010 Azavea, Inc.
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namespace Azavea.Open.DAO
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This interface represents the information needed to establish a connection to a data source.
    /// 
    /// Any class that implements this interface should be thread safe.  If not, it should be well
    /// documented.
    /// </summary>
    public interface IConnectionDescriptor
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Since we often need to represent database connection info as strings,
        /// child classes must implement ToCompleteString() such that this.Equals(that) and
        /// this.ToCompleteString().Equals(that.ToCompleteString()) will behave the same.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns>A string representation of all of the connection info.</returns>
        string ToCompleteString();

        /// <summary>
        /// This method is similar to ToString, except it will not contain any
        /// "sensitive" information, I.E. passwords.
        /// 
        /// This method is intended to be used for logging or error handling, where
        /// we do not want to display passwords to (potentially) just anyone, but
        /// we do want to indicate what DB connection we were using.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns>A string representation of most of the connection info, except
        ///          passwords or similar items that shouldn't be shown.</returns>
        string ToCleanString();

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the appropriate data access layer for this connection.  If this connection
        /// is capable of performing "DDL" operations (creating / deleting datastores, indexes, etc)
        /// this IDaLayer will also implement IDaDdlLayer.
        /// </summary>
        IDaLayer CreateDataAccessLayer();
    }
}