| /* |
| * 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. |
| * |
| */ |
| package org.apache.directory.mavibot.btree.serializer; |
| |
| |
| import java.io.IOException; |
| |
| |
| /** |
| * This interface is used by implementations of serializer, deserializr and comparator. |
| * |
| * @param <T> The type for the element to serialize |
| * |
| * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a> |
| */ |
| public interface Serializer<T> |
| { |
| /** |
| * Produce the byte[] representation of the type |
| * |
| * @param type The type to serialize |
| * @return The byte[] containing the serialized type |
| */ |
| byte[] serialize( T type ); |
| |
| |
| /** |
| * Deserialize a type from a byte[] |
| * |
| * @param bufferHandler The incoming BufferHandler |
| * @return The deserialized type |
| * @throws IOException If the deserialization failed |
| */ |
| T deserialize( BufferHandler bufferHandler ) throws IOException; |
| |
| |
| /** |
| * Returns the comparison of two types. <br/> |
| * <ul> |
| * <li>If type1 < type2, return -1</li> |
| * <li>If type1 > type2, return 1</li> |
| * <li>If type1 == type2, return 0</li> |
| * </ul> |
| * |
| * @param type1 The first type to compare |
| * @param type2 The second type to compare |
| * @return The comparison result |
| */ |
| int compare( T type1, T type2 ); |
| } |