/*******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2004, 2007-2008 IBM Corporation and Cambridge Semantics Incorporated.
* All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
* are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
* which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
* http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
*
* File: $Source: /cvsroot/slrp/glitter/com.ibm.adtech.glitter/src/com/ibm/adtech/glitter/rdf/datatype/ITypeMap.java,v $
* Created by: Lee Feigenbaum (<a href="mailto:feigenbl@us.ibm.com">feigenbl@us.ibm.com</a>)
* Created on: 10/23/06
* Revision: $Id: ITypeMap.java 164 2007-07-31 14:11:09Z mroy $
*
* Contributors: IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
* Cambridge Semantics Incorporated - Fork to Anzo
*******************************************************************************/
package org.openanzo.rdf.datatype;
import org.openanzo.rdf.URI;
/**
* Represents a map between an lexical datatype (like xsd:dateTime, xsd:integer, etc.) to a Java type (like {@link java.lang.Integer}, etc.).
*
* Implementations must be thread-safe.
*
* @author lee <lee@cambridgesemantics.com>
* @author Jordi Albornoz Mulligan (<a href="mailto:jordi@cambridgesemantics.com">jordi@cambridgesemantics.com </a>)
*/
interface LexicalToNativeTypeMap {
/**
* Get the datatype URI which designates the types of lexical literal values that this mapper supports converting.
*
* @return The datatype URI for this map. Will never be null.
*/
public URI getDatatype();
/**
* When lexical values are converted into Java object instances by this mapper, those instances will be instances of the Class returned by this method.
*
* @return the Java Class of which this type mapper creates instances. Will never be null.
*/
public Class<?> getOutputJavaClass();
@SuppressWarnings("all")
/**
* Transform from the lexical form of a value into a native Java object. The object will be of the class designated by {@link #getOutputJavaClass()}.
*
* @param value
* lexical value to convert
* @return a native Java object derived from the lexical value.
*/
public Object convertToNativeObject(String value);
}