PropertyAccessor.java

/*
 * Copyright 2010 Impetus Infotech.
 *
 * Licensed 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 com.impetus.kundera.property;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;

/**
 * Interface to access {@link Field} property of a java class.
 * 
 * @param <T>
 *            the generic type
 * @author animesh.kumar
 */
public interface PropertyAccessor<T> {

    /**
     * From bytes.
     * 
     * @param b
     *            the b
     * 
     * @return the T
     * 
     * @throws PropertyAccessException
     *             the property access exception
     */
    T fromBytes(byte[] b) throws PropertyAccessException;

    /**
     * To bytes.
     * 
     * @param object
     *            the object
     * 
     * @return the byte[]
     * 
     * @throws PropertyAccessException
     *             the property access exception
     */
    byte[] toBytes(Object object) throws PropertyAccessException;

    /**
     * Converts Object to String. Normally, this will be object.toString() But
     * in some cases, this might be different.
     * 
     * @param object
     *            the object
     * 
     * @return the string
     */
    String toString(Object object);
}