--- /dev/null
+package org.apache.lucene.facet.index.attributes;
+
+import java.util.Collection;
+import java.util.Set;
+
+import org.apache.lucene.util.Attribute;
+
+import org.apache.lucene.facet.taxonomy.CategoryPath;
+
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+/**
+ * An attribute which contains for a certain category the {@link CategoryPath}
+ * and additional properties.
+ *
+ * @lucene.experimental
+ */
+public interface CategoryAttribute extends Attribute {
+
+ /**
+ * Set the content of this {@link CategoryAttribute} from another
+ * {@link CategoryAttribute} object.
+ *
+ * @param other
+ * The {@link CategoryAttribute} to take the content from.
+ */
+ public void set(CategoryAttribute other);
+
+ /**
+ * Sets the category path value of this attribute.
+ *
+ * @param cp
+ * A category path. May not be null.
+ */
+ public void setCategoryPath(CategoryPath cp);
+
+ /**
+ * Returns the value of this attribute: a category path.
+ *
+ * @return The category path last assigned to this attribute, or null if
+ * none has been assigned.
+ */
+ public CategoryPath getCategoryPath();
+
+ /**
+ * Add a property. The property can be later retrieved using
+ * {@link #getProperty(Class)} with this property class .<br>
+ * Adding multiple properties of the same class is forbidden.
+ *
+ * @param property
+ * The property to add.
+ * @throws UnsupportedOperationException
+ * When attempting to add a property of a class that was added
+ * before and merge is prohibited.
+ */
+ public void addProperty(CategoryProperty property)
+ throws UnsupportedOperationException;
+
+ /**
+ * Get a property of a certain property class.
+ *
+ * @param propertyClass
+ * The required property class.
+ * @return The property of the given class, or null if no such property
+ * exists.
+ */
+ public CategoryProperty getProperty(
+ Class<? extends CategoryProperty> propertyClass);
+
+ /**
+ * Get a property of one of given property classes.
+ *
+ * @param propertyClasses
+ * The property classes.
+ * @return A property matching one of the given classes, or null if no such
+ * property exists.
+ */
+ public CategoryProperty getProperty(
+ Collection<Class<? extends CategoryProperty>> propertyClasses);
+
+ /**
+ * Get all the active property classes.
+ *
+ * @return A set containing the active property classes, or {@code null} if
+ * there are no properties.
+ */
+ public Set<Class<? extends CategoryProperty>> getPropertyClasses();
+
+ /**
+ * Clone this {@link CategoryAttribute}.
+ *
+ * @return A clone of this {@link CategoryAttribute}.
+ */
+ public CategoryAttribute clone();
+
+ /**
+ * Resets this attribute to its initial value: a null category path and no
+ * properties.
+ */
+ public void clear();
+
+ /**
+ * Clear all properties.
+ */
+ public void clearProperties();
+
+ /**
+ * Remove an property of a certain property class.
+ *
+ * @param propertyClass
+ * The required property class.
+ */
+ public void remove(Class<? extends CategoryProperty> propertyClass);
+}