src/org/apache/pig/impl/util/Spillable.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
 *
 *     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.pig.impl.util;

import java.io.IOException;

public interface Spillable {
    /**
     * Instructs an object to spill whatever it can to disk and release
     * references to any data structures it spills.
     * @return number of objects spilled.
     */
    long spill();
    
    /**
     * Requests that an object return an estimate of its in memory size.
     * @return estimated in memory size. */
    long getMemorySize();
}