/*
Copyright (C) SYSTAP, LLC DBA Blazegraph 2006-2016. All rights reserved.
Contact:
SYSTAP, LLC DBA Blazegraph
2501 Calvert ST NW #106
Washington, DC 20008
licenses@blazegraph.com
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
*/
/*
* Created on May 27, 2008
*/
package com.bigdata.io;
import java.io.ObjectInput;
import java.io.ObjectOutput;
import java.io.Serializable;
/**
* An abstraction for serializing and de-serializing objects on streams.
*
* @author <a href="mailto:thompsonbry@users.sourceforge.net">Bryan Thompson</a>
* @version $Id$
*
* @see SerializerUtil
* @see IRecordSerializer
*
* @todo reconcile {@link org.CognitiveWeb.extser.ISerializer}
*/
public interface IStreamSerializer<T> extends Serializable {
/**
* Serialize an object.
* <p>
* Note: All state required to de-serialize the object must be written onto
* the stream. That may include serializer state as well, such as dictionary
* that will be used on the other end to decode the object. In such cases
* the serializer needs to know how to de-serialize both the dictionary and
* the data. Stateful serializers such as <em>extSer</em> must encapsulate
* all requisite state on the output stream.
*
* @param out
* The stream onto which the object's state will be written.
* @param obj
* The object.
*/
void serialize(ObjectOutput out, T obj);
/**
* De-serialize an object.
*
* @param in
* The stream from which the object's state will be read.
*
* @return The object.
*/
T deserialize(ObjectInput in);
}