Converter.java

/*
 * Copyright (c) 2009-present 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 com.planet57.gshell.util.converter;

import java.beans.PropertyEditor;

/**
 * Provides the ability to convertToObject strings to objects.
 *
 * @since 2.0
 */
public interface Converter
    extends PropertyEditor
{
  /**
   * Gets the the type of object supported by this converter.
   *
   * @return The type supported by this converter.
   */
  Class getType();

  /**
   * Converts the supplied object to text.  If value is null, null will be returned.  If value is not an instance of
   * the this converter's type, a ConversionException will be thrown.
   *
   * @param value an instance of the editor type
   * @return the text equivalent of the value
   * @throws ConversionException if an error occurs while converting the value to a String (this is very rare)
   */
  String toString(Object value) throws ConversionException;

  /**
   * Converts the supplied text in to an instance of the editor type.  If text is null, null will be returned.
   *
   * @param text the text to convertToObject
   * @return an instance of the editor type
   * @throws ConversionException if an error occurs while converting the text to an object
   */
  Object toObject(String text) throws ConversionException;
}