edu.uiuc.ncsa.security.storage.data.ConversionMap Maven / Gradle / Ivy
package edu.uiuc.ncsa.security.storage.data;
import edu.uiuc.ncsa.security.core.Identifier;
import java.net.URI;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Map;
/**
* This is a specific type of map that allows for converting from a data type to a given type.
* For instance, a {@link edu.uiuc.ncsa.security.storage.sql.internals.ColumnMap} contains
* column names from an SQL table as its keys and the values are the entries, which are strings.
* A call to {@link #getDate(Object)} would convert the string to a date object. This
* encapsulates all the work involved in converting between objects.
* This is part of the data abstraction layer for all stores.
* Created by Jeff Gaynor
* on 4/16/12 at 12:06 PM
*/
public interface ConversionMap extends Map {
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a date.
* @param key
* @return
*/
public Date getDate(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a boolean
* @param key
* @return
*/
public boolean getBoolean(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a long.
* @param key
* @return
*/
public long getLong(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a string
* @param key
* @return
*/
public String getString(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to an identifier
* @param key
* @return
*/
public Identifier getIdentifier(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a URI.
* @param key
* @return
*/
public URI getURI(K key);
/**
* Convenience method to change the value to a byte array. Note that if the value is already a byte
* array (such as a BLOB in a database) it is simply returned unaltered.
* @param key
* @return
*/
byte[] getBytes(K key);
}