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}