    001    /*
    002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
    003     * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
    004     * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
    005     * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
    006     * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
    007     * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    008     *
    009     *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    010     *
    011     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    012     * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    013     * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    014     * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    015     * limitations under the License.
    016     */
    017
    018
    019    package org.apache.commons.beanutils;
    020
    021
    022    /**
    023     * <p>General purpose data type converter that can be registered and used
    024     * within the BeanUtils package to manage the conversion of objects from
    025     * one type to another.</p>
    026     *
    027     * <p>Converter subclasses bundled with the BeanUtils library are required
    028     * to be thread-safe, as users of the library may call conversion methods
    029     * from more than one thread simultaneously.</p>
    030     *
    031     * <p>Custom converter subclasses created by users of the library can be
    032     * non-thread-safe if the application using them is single-threaded. However
    033     * it is recommended that they be written in a thread-safe manner anyway.</p>
    034     *
    035     * @author Craig McClanahan
    036     * @author Paulo Gaspar
    037     * @version $Revision: 555824 $ $Date: 2007-07-13 01:27:15 +0100 (Fri, 13 Jul 2007) $
    038     * @since 1.3
    039     */
    040
    041    public interface Converter {
    042
    043
    044        /**
    045         * Convert the specified input object into an output object of the
    046         * specified type.
    047         *
    048         * @param type Data type to which this value should be converted
    049         * @param value The input value to be converted
    050         * @return The converted value
    051         *
    052         * @exception ConversionException if conversion cannot be performed
    053         *  successfully
    054         */
    055        public Object convert(Class type, Object value);
    056
    057
    058    }