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* or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
* distributed with this work for additional information
* regarding copyright ownership. The ASF 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
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* KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
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package org.apache.cayenne.access.types;
/**
* Descriptor and serialization helper for custom value objects that can be safely stored in the DB.
* Lightweight alternative for the {@link ExtendedType}.
*
* @param <V> type of user's custom object.
* @param <T> type that custom object will be serialized to/from
* should be backed by appropriate {@link ExtendedType}.
*
* @since 4.0
*/
public interface ValueObjectType<V, T> {
/**
* @return base type used to serialize <b>V</b> objects to.
*/
Class<T> getTargetType();
/**
* @return type of Objects described by this ValueObjectType.
*/
Class<V> getValueType();
/**
* @param value of type T
* @return java object
*/
V toJavaObject(T value);
/**
* @param object java object
* @return value of type T
*/
T fromJavaObject(V object);
/**
* Returned value should be same for objects that is logically equal.
*
* @return String representation usable for cache.
*/
String toCacheKey(V object);
}