package org.apache.commons.ognl;

/*
 * 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
 *
 *   http://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.
 */

import java.lang.reflect.Member;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * Interface for accessing the type conversion facilities within a context.
 */
public interface TypeConverter
{

    /**
     * Converts the given value to a given type. The OGNL context, target, member and name of property being set are
     * given. This method should be able to handle conversion in general without any context, target, member or property
     * name specified.
     *
     * @param context      OGNL context under which the conversion is being done
     * @param target       target object in which the property is being set
     * @param member       member (Constructor, Method or Field) being set
     * @param propertyName property name being set
     * @param value        value to be converted
     * @param toType       type to which value is converted
     * @return Converted value of type toType or TypeConverter.NoConversionPossible to indicate that the conversion was
     *         not possible.
     */
    <T> T convertValue( Map<String, Object> context, Object target, Member member, String propertyName, Object value,
                        Class<T> toType );

}