/*
* Copyright 2004-2009 the original author or authors.
*
* 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 org.compass.core.converter.basic.format;
import java.text.ParseException;
/**
* A generic interface allowing to format objects to Strings and parse them from Strings.
*
* @author kimchy
*/
public interface Formatter {
/**
* Formats the given object to String.
*/
String format(Object obj);
/**
* Parse the given string to an Object.
*/
Object parse(String str) throws ParseException;
/**
* Returns <code>true</code> if this formatter is thread safe, <code>false</code>
* otherwise.
*/
boolean isThreadSafe();
}