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TrueZIP is a Java based Virtual File System (VFS) to enable transparent, multi-threaded read/write access to archive files (ZIP, TAR etc.) as if they were directories. Archive files may be arbitrarily nested and the nesting level is only limited by heap and file system size.

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/*
 * Copyright (C) 2006-2010 Schlichtherle IT Services
 *
 * 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 de.schlichtherle.io.archive;

/**
 * Describes general properties of any archive.
 * A single instance of this interface is created for every
 * canonical path name representation of an archive file.
 * 
 * Client applications should never implement this interface because more
 * features may be added in future.
 *
 * @author Christian Schlichtherle
 * @version $Id: Archive.java,v 1.4 2010/08/20 13:09:51 christian_schlichtherle Exp $
 * @since TrueZIP 6.0
 */
public interface Archive {

    /**
     * Returns the canonical path of the archive file.
     * A canonical path is both absolute and unique.
     * The precise definition depends on the platform, but all elements in
     * a canonical path are separated by {@link java.io.File#separator}s.
     * 
     * This property may be used to determine some archive file specific
     * parameters, such as passwords or similar.
     * However, implementations must not assume that the file denoted by the
     * path actually exists as a file in the native file system!
     *
     * @return A valid reference to a {@link String} object
     *         - never {@code null}.
     * @see #getEnclArchive
     */
    String getPath();

    /**
     * @return The enclosing archive or {@code null} if this archive is
     *         not enclosed in another archive
     */
    Archive getEnclArchive();
}