/* DataContentHandler.java -- Converts streams to objects and vice versa.
   Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.

GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301 USA.

Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
combination.

As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
module.  An independent module is a module which is not derived from
or based on this library.  If you modify this library, you may extend
this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
obligated to do so.  If you do not wish to do so, delete this
exception statement from your version. */

package javax.activation;

import java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor;
import java.awt.datatransfer.UnsupportedFlavorException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;

/**
 * Provider that can convert streams to objects and vice versa.
 *
 * @author <a href='mailto:dog@gnu.org'>Chris Burdess</a>
 * @version 1.1
 */
public interface DataContentHandler
{

  /**
   * Returns a list of the flavors that data can be provided in, ordered
   * by preference.
   */
  DataFlavor[] getTransferDataFlavors();
  
  /**
   * Returns an object representing the data to be transferred.
   * @param df the flavor representing the requested type
   * @param ds the data source of the data to be converted
   */
  Object getTransferData(DataFlavor df, DataSource ds)
    throws UnsupportedFlavorException, IOException;
  
  /**
   * Returns an object representing the data in its most preferred form.
   * @param ds the data source of the data to be converted
   */
  Object getContent(DataSource ds)
    throws IOException;
  
  /**
   * Writes the object as a stream of bytes.
   * @param obj the object to convert
   * @param mimeType the MIME type of the stream
   * @param os the byte stream
   */
  void writeTo(Object obj, String mimeType, OutputStream os)
    throws IOException;
  
}

