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1   /*
2    * Copyright 2001-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
3    * 
4    * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
5    * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
6    * You may obtain a copy of the License at
7    * 
8    *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
9    * 
10   * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
11   * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
12   * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
13   * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
14   * limitations under the License.
15   */
16  package org.apache.juddi.uuidgen;
17  
18  /***
19   * A Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) is a 128 bit number generated
20   * according to an algorithm that is garanteed to be unique in time and space 
21   * from all other UUIDs. It consists of an IEEE 802 Internet Address and 
22   * various time stamps to ensure uniqueness. For a complete specification, 
23   * see ftp://ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-leach-uuids-guids-01.txt [leach].
24   *  
25   * @author Steve Viens (sviens@apache.org) 
26   */
27  public interface UUIDGen
28  {  
29    /***
30     * Generates a UUID and returns it's value as a String
31     * @return The new UUID value as a String
32     */
33    String uuidgen(); 
34    
35    /***
36     * Generates a collection of UUID's and returns thier 
37     * values as an array of Strings 
38     * @param nmbr The number of UUID's to generate
39     * @return An array of UUID's as String objects
40     */
41    String[] uuidgen(int nmbr);
42  }