001/*
002 *  Copyright 2010, 2011 Sousan Rassoul
003 *
004 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005 *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006 *  You may obtain a copy of the License at
007 *
008 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
009 *
010 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014 *  limitations under the License.
015 */
016package org.jadira.bindings.core.api;
017
018/**
019 * Interface for explicitly defining conversions from T to a target
020 * object type S.
021 * <p>
022 * Implementations of this class should be idempotent (behaviour should not vary
023 * between calls) and thread-safe.
024 * @param <S> Source type for the conversion
025 * @param <T> Target type
026 */
027public interface FromUnmarshaller<S, T> {
028
029    /**
030     * Converts from the given String into the specified object
031     * @param inputObject Object to transform, not null
032     * @return transformed instance of T (this can be null if appropriate)
033     */
034    S unmarshal(T inputObject);
035    
036    /**
037     * Obtain the bound class
038     * @return Class
039     */
040    Class<S> getBoundClass();
041    
042    /**
043     * Obtain the bound class
044     * @return Class
045     */
046    Class<T> getTargetClass();
047}