com.infomata.data.DataFormat Maven / Gradle / Ivy

Go to download

Show more of this group Show more artifacts with this name
Show all versions of informata-datafile Show documentation

Maven Package for datafile.sourceforge.net Java data file read/write utility that provides a convenient set of interfaces for reading and writing data to and from files in widely accepted format such as comma separated values (CSV), fixed width, tab separated, as well as others.

The newest version!

/*
 * $Id: DataFormat.java,v 1.2 2005/12/19 12:31:29 oldman1004 Exp $
 *
 * Copyright(c) 2002 Infomata
 * 
 * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA 
 */
package com.infomata.data;

/**
 * Interface for all data format classes used in reading
 * and writing a data file.
 *
 * @see com.infomata.data.DataFile
 * @author Sam Kim
 * @version $Revision: 1.2 $
 */
public interface DataFormat {

    /**
     * 
     * Parses a line of data into a DataRow object
     * which contains each data item in individual cells.
     * If the line of data does not terminate properly,
     * the method must return null and keep the currently parsed
     * row in memory for further processing.  Only when termination
     * requirements have been met, the method should return a
     * DataRow object.
     * 
     * 
     * For example, a CSV formated cell may contain a new line character.
     * Since the each line is delimited using new line character,
     * the line may contain only a part of the CSV data cell content.
     * The CSVFormat implementation does not return a
     * non-null reference to the DataRow object until
     * that cell has been terminated properly.
     * 
     * @param line line containing data items.
     * @return a DataRow object containing
     *         data items in individual cells.
     */
    public DataRow parseLine(String line);

  
    /**
     * Converts the data contained in the DataRow
     * object into a line of data.
     *
     * @param row a DataRow object containing data
     * @return String representing data items contained in
     *         DataRow object.
     */
    public String format(DataRow row);

}