/* IKeyPairGenerator.java -- 
   Copyright 2001, 2002, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is a part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.

GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301
USA

Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
combination.

As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
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or based on this library.  If you modify this library, you may extend
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exception statement from your version.  */


package gnu.java.security.key;

import java.security.KeyPair;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * The visible methods of every asymmetric keypair generator.
 */
public interface IKeyPairGenerator
{
  /**
   * Returns the canonical name of this keypair generator.
   * 
   * @return the canonical name of this instance.
   */
  String name();

  /**
   * [Re]-initialises this instance for use with a given set of attributes.
   * 
   * @param attributes a map of name/value pairs to use for setting up the
   *          instance.
   * @exception IllegalArgumentException if at least one of the mandatory
   *              attributes is missing or an invalid value was specified.
   */
  void setup(Map attributes);

  /**
   * Generates a new keypair based on the attributes used to configure the
   * instance.
   * 
   * @return a new keypair.
   */
  KeyPair generate();
}