/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 IBM Corporation and others.
 * 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
 *
 * Contributors:
 *     Mike Kucera (IBM) - Initial API and implementation
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.cdt.core.dom.ast;

/**
 * An implicit name is used to resolve uses of implicit bindings, such as overloaded operators.
 * 
 * Implicit names are not generated unless they resolve to something.
 *
 * @see ASTVisitor#shouldVisitImplicitNames
 * @since 5.1
 * @noextend This interface is not intended to be extended by clients.
 * @noimplement This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients.
 */
public interface IASTImplicitName extends IASTName {
	public static final IASTImplicitName[] EMPTY_NAME_ARRAY = {}; 

	/**
	 * {@inheritDoc}
	 * Redeclared with strengthened postcondition.
	 * 
	 * Will not return {@code null}, but may return a problem binding, for example for an implicit
	 * constructor call.
	 */
	@Override
	public IBinding resolveBinding();

	/**
	 * Returns {@code true} if this node is an alternate.
	 * 
	 * Sometimes more than one implicit name is generated for the same binding but with different
	 * offsets, when this happens the additional names generated are considered alternates.
	 * 
	 * @see ASTVisitor#shouldVisitImplicitNameAlternates
	 */
	public boolean isAlternate();

	/**
	 * Convenience method that returns true if this name represents an overloaded operator.
	 */
	public boolean isOperator();

	/**
	 * This method is not supported on implicit names.
	 * 
	 * Implicit names are not copied when an AST is copied, instead the implicit names are
	 * regenerated when needed.
	 * 
	 * @throws UnsupportedOperationException always
	 */
	@Override
	IASTName copy() throws UnsupportedOperationException;
}
