/*******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2005, 2007 IBM Corporation and others.
* 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
*
* Contributors:
* IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
*******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.core.databinding.conversion;
/**
* A one-way converter.
*
* This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients; clients should
* subclass {@link Converter}.
*
* @since 1.0
*
*/
public interface IConverter {
/**
* Returns the type whose instances can be converted by this converter. The
* return type is Object rather than Class to optionally support richer type
* systems than the one provided by Java reflection.
*
* @return the type whose instances can be converted, or null if this
* converter is untyped
*/
public Object getFromType();
/**
* Returns the type to which this converter can convert. The return type is
* Object rather than Class to optionally support richer type systems than
* the one provided by Java reflection.
*
* @return the type to which this converter can convert, or null if this
* converter is untyped
*/
public Object getToType();
/**
* Returns the result of the conversion of the given object.
*
* @param fromObject
* the object to convert, of type {@link #getFromType()}
* @return the converted object, of type {@link #getToType()}
*/
public Object convert(Object fromObject);
}