src/main/java/org/apache/commons/beanutils2/Converter.java

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You 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
 *
 *      https://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.
 */

package org.apache.commons.beanutils2;

/**
 * <p>
 * General purpose data type converter that can be registered and used within the BeanUtils package to manage the conversion of objects from one type to
 * another.
 * </p>
 *
 * <p>
 * Converter subclasses bundled with the BeanUtils library are required to be thread-safe, as users of the library may call conversion methods from more than
 * one thread simultaneously.
 * </p>
 *
 * <p>
 * Custom converter subclasses created by users of the library can be non-thread-safe if the application using them is single-threaded. However it is
 * recommended that they be written in a thread-safe manner anyway.
 * </p>
 *
 * @param <T> The convert type.
 * @since 1.3
 */
@FunctionalInterface
public interface Converter<T> {

    /**
     * Converts the specified input object into an output object of the specified type.
     *
     * @param <R>   the result type.
     * @param type  Data type to which this value should be converted.
     * @param value The input value to be converted.
     * @return The converted value.
     * @throws ConversionException if conversion cannot be performed successfully.
     */
    <R> R convert(Class<R> type, Object value);

}