/*
 * Copyright 2011 The Netty Project
 *
 * The Netty Project licenses this file to you under the Apache License,
 * version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
 * WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
 * License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */
package org.jboss.netty.channel;

import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffer;

/**
 * Predicts the number of readable bytes in the receive buffer of a
 * {@link Channel}.
 * <p>
 * It calculates the close-to-optimal capacity of the {@link ChannelBuffer}
 * for the next read operation depending on the actual number of read bytes
 * in the previous read operation.  More accurate the prediction is, more
 * effective the memory utilization will be.
 * <p>
 * Once a read operation is performed and the actual number of read bytes is
 * known, an I/O thread will call {@link #previousReceiveBufferSize(int)} to
 * update the predictor so it can predict more accurately next time.
 */
public interface ReceiveBufferSizePredictor {

    /**
     * Predicts the capacity of the {@link ChannelBuffer} for the next
     * read operation depending on the actual number of read bytes in the
     * previous read operation.
     *
     * @return the expected number of readable bytes this time
     */
    int nextReceiveBufferSize();

    /**
     * Updates this predictor by specifying the actual number of read bytes
     * in the previous read operation.
     *
     * @param previousReceiveBufferSize
     *        the actual number of read bytes in the previous read operation
     */
    void previousReceiveBufferSize(int previousReceiveBufferSize);
}