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Utilities for input/output and streaming.

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/* Copyright (c) The m-m-m Team, Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 */
package net.sf.mmm.util.io.api;

/**
 * This is a call back interface that allows efficient processing of byte-buffers.
 *
 * @author Joerg Hohwiller (hohwille at users.sourceforge.net)
 * @since 1.0.1
 */
public interface ByteProcessor {

  /**
   * This method is called to process the number of {@code length} bytes from the given {@code buffer} starting from the
   * given {@code offset}. 

   * ATTENTION:

   * An implementation of this interface should only read bytes from the given {@code buffer}. It is NOT permitted to
   * modify the given {@code buffer} unless this is explicitly specified by the calling object (typically an
   * implementation of {@link ByteProcessable}).
   *
   * @param buffer contains the bytes to process.
   * @param offset is the index where to start in the {@code buffer}.
   * @param length is the number of bytes to proceed.
   * @return the number of bytes that should be consumed. Typically you will simply return {@code length} . However you
   *         can also return a value less than length and greater or equal to zero, in order to stop processing at a
   *         specific position.
   */
  int process(byte[] buffer, int offset, int length);

}