Selectable.php

<?php

/*
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 * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
 * OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 *
 * This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many individuals
 * and is licensed under the MIT license. For more information, see
 * <http://www.doctrine-project.org>.
 */
namespace Doctrine\Common\Collections;


/**
 * Interface for collections that allow efficient filtering with an expression API.
 *
 * Goal of this interface is a backend independent method to fetch elements
 * from a collections. {@link Expression} is crafted in a way that you can
 * implement queries from both in-memory and database-backed collections.
 *
 * For database backed collections this allows very efficient access by
 * utilizing the query APIs, for example SQL in the ORM. Applications using
 * this API can implement efficient database access without having to ask the
 * EntityManager or Repositories.
 *
 * @author Benjamin Eberlei <kontakt@beberlei.de>
 * @since 2.3
 */
interface Selectable {

  /**
   * Select all elements from a selectable that match the expression and
   * return a new collection containing these elements.
   *
   * @param Criteria $criteria
   * @return Collection
   */
  function matching(Criteria $criteria);

}