/*
Copyright (c) 2007 Health Market Science, Inc.
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.
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 library; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
USA
You can contact Health Market Science at info@healthmarketscience.com
or at the following address:
Health Market Science
2700 Horizon Drive
Suite 200
King of Prussia, PA 19406
*/
package com.healthmarketscience.rmiio;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.Serializable;
/**
* Interface for streaming a read-only collection of objects using rmi.
* Interface mimics the Iterator interface, but allows for IOExceptions and
* requires the implementation to be Serializable. This interface is useful
* for situations where a collection is too large to be in memory all at once
* and instead needs to be streamed to the consumer of the data. For example,
* data could be read directly from a database and streamed to a remote object
* using this utility. Generally, one would use the
* RemoteIteratorClient/Server classes to implement the remote functionality.
* <p>
* Since this interface is built for use in a remote fashion, there is also a
* close() method to facilitate better resource management. Consumers of the
* iterator should ensure that the close method is called one way or another
* (especially if the entire iteration is not consumed!), or resources may
* not be utilized as efficiently on the server.
* <p>
* Note, implementations of this class are not required to be thread-safe.
*
* @author James Ahlborn
*/
public interface RemoteIterator<DataType>
extends CloseableIOIterator<DataType>, Serializable, RemoteClient
{
/**
* Closes the iterator and releases the resources for the server
* object. Note that the remote object <i>may no longer be accessible</i>
* after this call (depending on the implementation), so clients should not
* attempt to use this iterator after making this call.
*/
public void close() throws IOException;
}