org.simpleframework.xml.transform.Transform Maven / Gradle / Ivy
/*
* Transform.java May 2007
*
* Copyright (C) 2007, Niall Gallagher
*
* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
* License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
*
* This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General
* Public License along with this library; if not, write to the
* Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
* Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
*/
package org.simpleframework.xml.transform;
/**
* A Transform represents a an object used to transform
* an object to and from a string value. This is typically used when
* either an Attribute or Element annotation
* is used to mark the field of a type that does not contain any of
* the XML annotations, and so does not represent an XML structure.
* For example take the following annotation.
*
*
* @Text
* private Date date;
*
*
* The above annotation marks an object from the Java class libraries
* which does not contain any XML annotations. During serialization
* and deserialization of such types a transform is used to process
* the object such that it can be written and read to and from XML.
*
* @author Niall Gallagher
*/
public interface Transform {
/**
* This method is used to convert the string value given to an
* appropriate representation. This is used when an object is
* being deserialized from the XML document and the value for
* the string representation is required.
*
* @param value this is the string representation of the value
*
* @return this returns an appropriate instanced to be used
*/
public T read(String value) throws Exception;
/**
* This method is used to convert the provided value into an XML
* usable format. This is used in the serialization process when
* there is a need to convert a field value in to a string so
* that that value can be written as a valid XML entity.
*
* @param value this is the value to be converted to a string
*
* @return this is the string representation of the given value
*/
public String write(T value) throws Exception;
}