generic/servicesapi/src/main/java/org/apache/stanbol/enhancer/servicesapi/ContentReference.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.stanbol.enhancer.servicesapi;

import java.io.IOException;


/**
 * A reference to the content. This allows to {@link #dereference()} the
 * content when it is used.
 */
public interface ContentReference {
    /**
     * The String representation of this reference.
     * @return the reference string
     */
    String getReference();
    /**
     * Dereferences this content reference
     * @return the referenced {@link ContentSource}
     * @throws IOException on any error while dereferencing the source
     */
    ContentSource dereference() throws IOException;
}