001/*
002 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
003 *  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
004 *  distributed with this work for additional information
005 *  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
006 *  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
007 *  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
008 *  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
009 *
010 *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
011 *
012 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
013 *  software distributed under the License is distributed on an
014 *  "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
015 *  KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
016 *  specific language governing permissions and limitations
017 *  under the License.
018 *
019 */
020package org.apache.directory.mavibot.btree.serializer;
021
022
023import java.io.IOException;
024
025
026/**
027 * This interface is used by implementations of serializer, deserializr and comparator.
028 * 
029 * @param <T> The type for the element to serialize
030 * 
031 * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
032 */
033public interface Serializer<T>
034{
035    /**
036     * Produce the byte[] representation of the type
037     * 
038     * @param type The type to serialize
039     * @return The byte[] containing the serialized type
040     */
041    byte[] serialize( T type );
042
043
044    /**
045     * Deserialize a type from a byte[]
046     * 
047     * @param bufferHandler The incoming BufferHandler
048     * @return The deserialized type
049     * @throws IOException If the deserialization failed
050     */
051    T deserialize( BufferHandler bufferHandler ) throws IOException;
052
053
054    /**
055     * Returns the comparison of two types. <br/>
056     * <ul>
057     * <li>If type1 < type2, return -1</li>
058     * <li>If type1 > type2, return 1</li>
059     * <li>If type1 == type2, return 0</li>
060     * </ul>
061     * 
062     * @param type1 The first type to compare 
063     * @param type2 The second type to compare 
064     * @return The comparison result
065     */
066    int compare( T type1, T type2 );
067}