| /* |
| * Copyright 2001-2004 The Apache Software Foundation. |
| * |
| * 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 org.apache.commons.codec; |
| |
| /** |
| * <p>Provides the highest level of abstraction for Decoders. |
| * This is the sister interface of {@link Encoder}. All |
| * Decoders implement this common generic interface.</p> |
| * |
| * <p>Allows a user to pass a generic Object to any Decoder |
| * implementation in the codec package.</p> |
| * |
| * <p>One of the two interfaces at the center of the codec package.</p> |
| * |
| * @author Apache Software Foundation |
| * @version $Id: Decoder.java,v 1.9 2004/02/29 04:08:31 tobrien Exp $ |
| */ |
| public interface Decoder { |
| |
| /** |
| * Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded" |
| * Object. Note that the implementation of this |
| * interface will try to cast the Object parameter |
| * to the specific type expected by a particular Decoder |
| * implementation. If a {@link java.lang.ClassCastException} occurs |
| * this decode method will throw a DecoderException. |
| * |
| * @param pObject an object to "decode" |
| * |
| * @return a 'decoded" object |
| * |
| * @throws DecoderException a decoder exception can |
| * be thrown for any number of reasons. Some good |
| * candidates are that the parameter passed to this |
| * method is null, a param cannot be cast to the |
| * appropriate type for a specific encoder. |
| */ |
| Object decode(Object pObject) throws DecoderException; |
| } |
| |