001    /*
002      Copyright (C) 2002 Julien van Malderen
003    
004      This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
005      it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
006      published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
007      License, or (at your option) any later version.
008    
009      This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
010      but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
011      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
012      GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
013    
014      You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
015      along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
016      Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA */
017    
018    package org.objectweb.jac.aspects.persistence;
019    
020    /**
021     * The *StringConverter interface that converts Objects into String
022     * for stocking, and String into Objects
023     */
024    
025    public interface StringConverter {
026    
027       /**
028        * Returns a string representation of a field so that it can be
029        * stored.<p>
030        *
031        * @param obj a persistent or primitive object
032        * @return a ready to store string representation */
033    
034       String objectToString(Object obj);
035    
036    
037       /**
038        * Returns an object from a string, depending on the needed type.<p>
039        *
040        * @param str the value in a string format
041        * @return an object value deduced from the string representation
042        * and from the needed type */
043    
044       Object stringToObject(String str);
045    }