com.topologi.diffx.xml.XMLFormattable Maven / Gradle / Ivy

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docx4j is a library which helps you to work with the Office Open XML file format as used in docx documents, pptx presentations, and xlsx spreadsheets.

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/*
 * This file is part of the DiffX library.
 *
 * For licensing information please see the file license.txt included in the release.
 * A copy of this licence can also be found at
 *   http://www.opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license-2.0.php
 */
package com.topologi.diffx.xml;

/**
 * An Object which implements this interface can be formatted as XML using a toXML
 * method as a string.
 *
 * 
This method is provided for convenience for small object to avoid the overhead in using
 * writers.
 *
 * @author Christophe Lauret (Allette Systems)
 *
 * @version 10 December 2004
 */
public interface XMLFormattable {

  /**
   * Appends the XML representation of the object of the implementing class.
   *
   * 
Implementations must ensure that the returned string buffer is the same
   * object as the specified string buffer.
   *
   * @param xml The string buffer to which the XML representation is appended to.
   *
   * @return The modified string buffer.
   *
   * @throws NullPointerException if the specified character sequence is null.
   */
  StringBuffer toXML(StringBuffer xml) throws NullPointerException;

  /**
   * 
Returns a xml representation of the object of the implementing class.
   *
   * 
Most implementation should use the following code to ensure consistent data with the
   * other toXML method:
   *
   * 
return this.toXML(new StringBuffer()).toString();
   *
   * @return a XML representation of the object of the implementing class.
   */
  String toXML();

}