IChemFormat.java

/* $RCSfile$
 * $Author$
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 *
 * Copyright (C) 1997-2007  The Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) project
 *
 * Contact: cdk-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
 *
 * This program 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.
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 * - but is not limited to - adding the above copyright notice to the beginning
 * of your source code files, and to any copyright notice that you may distribute
 * with programs based on this work.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
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 * 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., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
 */
package org.openscience.cdk.io.formats;

/**
 * This class is the interface that all ChemFormat's should implement.
 *
 * @cdk.module ioformats
 * @cdk.githash
 *
 * @author      Egon Willighagen <egonw@sci.kun.nl>
 * @cdk.created 2004-10-25
 */
public interface IChemFormat extends IResourceFormat {

    /**
     * Returns the class name of the CDK Reader for this format.
     *
     * @return null if no CDK Reader is available.
     */
    public String getReaderClassName();

    /**
     * Returns the class name of the CDK Writer for this format.
     *
     * @return null if no CDK Writer is available.
     */
    public String getWriterClassName();
    
    /**
     * Returns an integer indicating the data features that this 
     * format supports. The integer is composed as explained in 
     * DataFeatures. May be set to DataFeatures.NONE as default.
     * 
     * @see org.openscience.cdk.tools.DataFeatures
     */
	public int getSupportedDataFeatures();

    /**
     * Returns an integer indicating the data features that this 
     * format requires. For example, the XYZ format requires 3D
     * coordinates.
     * 
     * @see org.openscience.cdk.tools.DataFeatures
     */
    public int getRequiredDataFeatures();
}