package it.unimi.dsi.compression;
/*
* DSI utilities
*
* Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Sebastiano Vigna
*
* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
* Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option)
* any later version.
*
* This library 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 Lesser General Public License
* for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser 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.
*
*/
/** An abstract factory corresponding to an instance of a specific compression technique.
*
* <P>An implementation of this interface provides coders and decoders. The
* constructors must provide all data that is required to perform coding
* and decoding.
*/
public interface Codec {
/** Returns a coder for the compression technique represented by this coded.
*
* @return a coder for the compression technique represented by this codec. */
public Coder coder();
/** Returns a decoder for the compression technique represented by this coded.
*
* @return a decoder for the compression technique represented by this codec. */
public Decoder decoder();
/** Returns the number of symbols handled by this codec.
*
* @return the number of symbols handled by this codec.
*/
public int size();
}