net.projectmonkey.object.mapper.construction.converter.Converter Maven / Gradle / Ivy

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package net.projectmonkey.object.mapper.construction.converter;

import net.projectmonkey.object.mapper.construction.PopulationContext;

/*
 *
 *  * Copyright 2012 the original author or authors.
 *  *
 *  * 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.
 *
 */

/**
 * Converters define how to convert from a source object to the
 * destination type.
 * It is expected that objects returned from a converter
 * are fully constructed so no further mapping is performed.
 * @author Andy Moody
 */
public interface Converter
{

	/**
	 * Create (if not already existing or if the existing object is immutable)
	 * and populate the destination object from the provided context
	 * @param context
	 * @return the fully populated destination.
	 */
	DestinationType convert(PopulationContext context);

	/**
	 * Method used to validate whether a Converter is applicable for the context.
	 * Note that if this evaluates to false when the converter has been specifically
	 * targeted to the property using {@link net.projectmonkey.object.mapper.annotations.group.Group }
	 * or {@link net.projectmonkey.object.mapper.annotations.group.Groups } an error is triggered.
	 * 
	 * @param context
	 * @return true if the converter can convert the source to the destination type given the current context,
	 * false otherwise.
	 **/
	boolean canConvert(PopulationContext context);

}