Deserializer.java

/*
 * Copyright 2014 Grow Bit
 *
 * 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.turbogwt.net.serialization.client;

import java.util.Collection;

/**
 * Performs deserialization of Types.
 *
 * @param <T> The type it can deserialize
 *
 * @author Danilo Reinert
 */
public interface Deserializer<T> {

    /**
     * Method for accessing type of the Object this deserializer can handle.
     *
     * @return The class which this deserializer can deserialize
     */
    Class<T> handledType();

    /**
     * Tells the content-type patterns which this deserializer handles.
     * <p/>
     * 
     * E.g., a deserializer for JSON can return {"application/json", "application/javascript"}.<br>
     * If you want to create a deserializer for any content-type just return "*/*".
     * 
     * @return The content-type patterns handled by this deserializer.
     */
    String[] accept();

    /**
     * Deserialize the plain text into an object of type T.
     *
     * @param response  Http response body content
     * @param context   Context of deserialization
     *
     * @return The object deserialized
     */
    T deserialize(String response, DeserializationContext context);

    /**
     * Deserialize the plain text into a collection T.
     * <p/>
     * 
     * The collection instance can be retrieved from its {@link org.turbogwt.core.util.shared.Factory},
     * obtained in {@link ContainerFactoryManager#getFactory}.<br>
     * The ContainerFactoryManager can be retrieved from {@link DeserializationContext#getContainerInstance(Class)}.
     *
     * @param collectionType    The class of the collection
     * @param response          Http response body content
     * @param context           Context of deserialization
     *
     * @return The object deserialized
     */
    <C extends Collection<T>> C deserializeAsCollection(Class<C> collectionType, String response,
                                                        DeserializationContext context);
}