IResourceFormat.java

/* $RCSfile$
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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
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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.
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 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
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 */
package org.openscience.cdk.io.formats;

/**
 * This class is the interface that all ResourceFormat's should implement.
 * An implementation is supposed to be a singleton class, so it should have
 * only private constructors, and implement the getInstance() method.
 *
 * @cdk.module ioformats
 * @cdk.githash
 *
 * @author      Egon Willighagen <egonw@users.sf.net>
 * @cdk.created 2006-03-04
 */
public interface IResourceFormat {

    /**
     * Returns a one-lined format name of the format.
     */
    public String getFormatName();

    /**
     * Returns the preferred resource name extension.
     */
    public String getPreferredNameExtension();

    /**
     * Returns an array of common resource name extensions.
     */
    public String[] getNameExtensions();

    /**
     * Returns the accepted MIME type for this format.
     *
     * @return null if no MIME type has been accepted on
     */
    public String getMIMEType();
    
    /**
     * Indicates if the format is an XML-based language.
     * 
     * @return if the format is XML-based.
     */
    public boolean isXMLBased();
}