bundles/common/org.eclipse.apogy.common.converters/src/org/eclipse/apogy/common/converters/IConverter.java

/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2018 Agence spatiale canadienne / Canadian Space Agency
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
<<<<<<< HEAD
 *     Pierre Allard - initial API and implementation
 *     Regent L'Archeveque
 * 
=======
 *     Pierre Allard, 
 *     Regent L'Archeveque,
 *     Sebastien Gemme - initial API and implementation
 *     
>>>>>>> refs/heads/eclipse_pa
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: EPL-1.0
 *     
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.apogy.common.converters;

public interface IConverter {
	/**
	 * Return the type of the conversion output.
	 * 
	 * @return The type of the output.
	 */
	public Class<?> getOutputType();

	/**
	 * Returns the type of conversion of the input.
	 * 
	 * @return The type of the input.
	 */
	public Class<?> getInputType();

	/**
	 * Whether or not the specified input object can be converted to the output.
	 * This method is called prior to the convert method to avoid to go through
	 * costly conversion to find out that the conversion cannot take place.
	 * 
	 * @param input The input object.
	 * @return True if the object can be converted, false otherwise.
	 */
	public boolean canConvert(final Object input);

	/**
	 * Converts the input to an object of the output type.
	 * 
	 * @param input The input object.
	 * @return The output of the conversion.
	 * @exception If the conversion failed.
	 */
	public Object convert(final Object input) throws Exception;
}