/*
* =============================================================================
*
* Copyright (c) 2011-2016, The THYMELEAF team (http://www.thymeleaf.org)
*
* 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.thymeleaf.standard.expression;
import org.thymeleaf.context.IExpressionContext;
/**
* <p>
* Common interface for all implementations of a conversion service, to be used during template execution.
* </p>
* <p>
* Thymeleaf conversion services work in a way similar to Spring Framework's <tt>ConversionService</tt> interface,
* but this is a generic mechanism (not dependent on Spring).
* </p>
* <p>
* Default implementation —registered by {@link org.thymeleaf.standard.StandardDialect}—
* is {@link StandardConversionService}, which performs some standard conversions, but the
* Spring Standard Dialect used by the Thymeleaf + Spring integration module automatically registers an implementation
* of this interface that delegates on any existing Spring <tt>ConversionService</tt> objects (thus using
* the Converters and Formatters registered at the Spring Application Context).
* </p>
* <p>
* <strong>Important</strong>: there is one conversion that implementations of this interface should
* <em>always</em> implement, because it is heavily used at the Thymeleaf core: conversion of any Object to String.
* </p>
* <p>
* The implementation of this interface that should be used is specified as an <i>execution attribute</i>
* by the Standard Dialects (see {@link org.thymeleaf.standard.StandardDialect#getExecutionAttributes()}).
* </p>
* <p>
* Implementations of this interface should be <strong>thread-safe</strong>.
* </p>
*
* @author Daniel Fernández
*
* @since 2.1.0
*
*/
public interface IStandardConversionService {
/**
* <p>
* Convert a value to the specified target class, if possible.
* </p>
* <p>
* Might raise an exception (usually {@link IllegalArgumentException}) if a conversion is not available
* for the specified object and the target class.
* </p>
*
* @param <T> the type of the target class
* @param context the context object.
* @param object the object to be converted.
* @param targetClass the target class the object should be converted to.
* @return the object, converted. Or an exception if the conversion has not been possible.
*/
public <T> T convert(final IExpressionContext context,
final Object object, final Class<T> targetClass);
}