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/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) Contributors to the Eclipse 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.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.osgi.util.converter;

import java.lang.reflect.Type;

import org.osgi.annotation.versioning.ProviderType;

/**
 * This interface is used to specify the target that an object should be
 * converted to. A {@link Converting} instance can be obtained via the
 * {@link Converter}.
 *
 * @author $Id: a0b7838a0ab2224c01c838b31a45fa8bd13d04e1 $
 * @NotThreadSafe
 */
@ProviderType
public interface Converting extends Specifying {
	/**
	 * Specify the target object type for the conversion as a class object.
	 *
	 * @param cls The class to convert to.
	 * @param  The type to convert to.
	 * @return The converted object.
	 */
	 T to(Class cls);

	/**
	 * Specify the target object type as a Java Reflection Type object.
	 *
	 * @param type A Type object to represent the target type to be converted
	 *            to.
	 * @param  The type to convert to.
	 * @return The converted object.
	 */
	 T to(Type type);

	/**
	 * Specify the target object type as a {@link TypeReference}. If the target
	 * class carries generics information a TypeReference should be used as this
	 * preserves the generic information whereas a Class object has this
	 * information erased. Example use:
	 *
	 * 	 * List<String> result = converter.convert(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3))
	 * 		.to(new TypeReference<List<String>>() {
	 * 		});
	 * 
	 *
	 * @param ref A type reference to the object being converted to.
	 * @param  The type to convert to.
	 * @return The converted object.
	 */
	 T to(TypeReference ref);
}