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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.serialization.api;

/**
 * This is the interface to {@link #serialize(Object) serialize} and {@link #deserialize(byte[]) deserialize}
 * arbitrary Java objects. As a default implementation we offer
 * {@link net.sf.mmm.util.serialization.base.JavaSerializer} but there can be many alternative implementations
 * like JSon, GWT RPC, etc. 

 * The call {@link #deserialize(byte[]) deserialize}({@link #serialize(Object) serialize}(o)) should have
 * behave like creating a deep-{@link Cloneable clone}. 

 * 

 * ATTENTION:

 * Not all objects can be {@link #serialize(Object) serialized}. By default they have to be compliant with
 * {@link java.io.Serializable}. However, specific implementations may have additional or alternate
 * requirements. E.g. for GWT (Google Web Toolkit) the object has to have a non-arg constructor (may be
 * protected) and shall not have
 * final fields.
 *
 * @author Joerg Hohwiller (hohwille at users.sourceforge.net)
 * @since 5.0.0
 */
public interface Serializer {

  /**
   * Serializes (or marshals) the given {@link Object} to serialized data.
   *
   * @param object is the {@link Object} to serialize. May be {@code null}.
   * @return the serialized data (payload) representing the given {@link Object}. We use {@code byte[]} to
   *         allow arbitrary data including any binary format. However, this can also be a {@link String}
   *         encoded e.g. in UTF-8.
   */
  byte[] serialize(Object object);

  /**
   * De-serializes (or un-marshals) the given {@link #serialize(Object) serialized data} back to the
   * corresponding {@link Object}.
   *
   * @param data is the {@link #serialize(Object) serialized data}.
   * @return the
   */
  Object deserialize(byte[] data);

}