/*

  * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more

  * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with

  * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.

  * The ASF licenses this file to You 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.commons.codec;

 /**

  * Defines common encoding methods for byte array encoders.

  *

  * @version $Id$

  */

 public interface BinaryEncoder extends Encoder {

     /**

      * Encodes a byte array and return the encoded data as a byte array.

      *

      * @param source

      *            Data to be encoded

      * @return A byte array containing the encoded data

      * @throws EncoderException

      *             thrown if the Encoder encounters a failure condition during the encoding process.

      */

     byte[] encode(byte[] source) throws EncoderException;

 }