/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright 2010 Cees De Groot, Alex Boisvert, Jan Kotek
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 ******************************************************************************/


package org.apache.jdbm;

import java.io.*;

/**
 * Interface used to provide a serialization mechanism other than a class' normal
 * serialization.
 *
 * @author Alex Boisvert
 */
public interface Serializer<A> {

    /**
     * Serialize the content of an object into a byte array.
     *
     * @param out ObjectOutput to save object into
     * @param obj Object to serialize
     */
    public void serialize(DataOutput out, A obj)
            throws IOException;


    /**
     * Deserialize the content of an object from a byte array.
     *
     * @param in to read serialized data from
     * @return deserialized object
     * @throws IOException
     * @throws ClassNotFoundException
     */
    public A deserialize(DataInput in)
            throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException;

}