Domain plug-ins are just Java classes that conform to a well-defined interfaces. There is a base interface that describes common features of all domain plug-ins and more specialized interfaces for each type of plug-in. At run-time, the infrastructure co-ordinates instantiation and invocation of all plug-ins, so the process of writing plug-ins is straightforward: methods need to be implemented that perform the data conversion and comparison operations and very little else needs to be considered.
All plug-in classes implement the curam.util.common.domain.DomainPlugIn interface. This defines some common operations and provides access to basic information that the plug-in may require. The main methods declared in this interface are listed below. For more information see the Cúram JavaDoc documentation.
This method is used to get the name of this plug-in (one of the four plug-in names described above).
This method is used to get the locale associated with this plug-in instance.
This method is used to get the domain applicable to this plug-in instance.
The final method is used to get an instance of a domain plug-in; it is not invoked in custom code. Instantiation issues are described in more detail in Plug-in Instance Management. You should use the default implementations of these methods provided by the Cúram plug-in classes.
The methods of the DomainPlugIn interface do not really do anything interesting. Derived interfaces define the specific operations that each type of plug-in performs.