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 to a target object from a specific
020 * object type (marshalling).
021 * <br>
022 * Implementations of this class should be idempotent (behaviour should not vary
023 * between calls) and thread-safe. 
024 * <br>
025 * S refers to the bound type for the conversion <br>
026 * T refers to the target type
027 */
028public interface ToMarshaller<S, T> {
029
030    /**
031     * Converts to the given object from the specified object
032     * @param object Object to transform, not null
033     * @return S converted to T
034     */
035    T marshal(S object);
036    
037    /**
038     * Obtain the bound class
039     * @return Class
040     */
041    Class<S> getBoundClass();
042    
043    /**
044     * Obtain the bound class
045     * @return Class
046     */
047    Class<T> getTargetClass();
048}