platform/core-api/src/com/intellij/psi/PsiReferenceContributor.java

/*
 * Copyright 2000-2014 JetBrains s.r.o.
 *
 * Licensed 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.
 */
package com.intellij.psi;

import com.intellij.openapi.Disposable;
import com.intellij.openapi.extensions.ExtensionPointName;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;

/**
 * Via implementing this extension it's possible to provide references ({@link com.intellij.psi.PsiReference}) to
 * PSI elements which support that. Such known elements include: XML tags and attribute values, Java/Python/Javascript
 * literal expressions, comments etc. The reference contributors are run once per project and are able to
 * register reference providers for specific locations. See {@link com.intellij.psi.PsiReferenceRegistrar} for more details.
 *
 * The contributed references may then be obtained via
 * {@link com.intellij.psi.PsiReferenceService#getReferences(PsiElement, com.intellij.psi.PsiReferenceService.Hints)},
 * which is the preferred way.
 * Some elements return them from {@link PsiElement#getReferences()} directly though, but one should not rely on that
 * behavior since it may be changed in the future.
 *
 * Note that, if you're implementing a custom language, it won't by default support references registered through PsiReferenceContributor.
 * If you want to support that, you need to call
 * {@link com.intellij.psi.impl.source.resolve.reference.ReferenceProvidersRegistry#getReferencesFromProviders(PsiElement)} from your implementation
 * of PsiElement.getReferences().
 *
 * The alternative way to register {@link PsiReferenceProvider} is by using {@link PsiReferenceProviderBean}.
 *
 * @author peter
 * @see PsiReferenceProviderBean
 */
public abstract class PsiReferenceContributor implements Disposable {
  public static final ExtensionPointName<PsiReferenceContributor> EP_NAME = ExtensionPointName.create("com.intellij.psi.referenceContributor");

  public abstract void registerReferenceProviders(@NotNull PsiReferenceRegistrar registrar);

  @Override
  public void dispose() {
  }
}