001/*
002 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
003 *  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
004 *  distributed with this work for additional information
005 *  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
006 *  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
007 *  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
008 *  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
009 *  
010 *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
011 *  
012 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
013 *  software distributed under the License is distributed on an
014 *  "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
015 *  KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
016 *  specific language governing permissions and limitations
017 *  under the License. 
018 *  
019 */
020package org.apache.directory.api.ldap.codec.api;
021
022
023import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
024
025import org.apache.directory.api.asn1.EncoderException;
026
027
028/**
029 * The codec uses this interface to add additional information to LDAP Model
030 * objects during encoding and decoding,
031 *
032 * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
033 */
034public interface Decorator<E>
035{
036    /**
037     * Gets the object being decorated by this IDecorator.
038     *
039     * @return The decorated object
040     */
041    E getDecorated();
042
043
044    /**
045     * Compute the object length, which is the sum of all inner length.
046     * 
047     * @return The object's computed length
048     */
049    int computeLength();
050
051
052    /**
053     * Encode the object to a PDU.
054     * 
055     * @param buffer The buffer where to put the PDU
056     * @return The PDU.
057     * @throws EncoderException if the buffer can't be encoded
058     */
059    ByteBuffer encode( ByteBuffer buffer ) throws EncoderException;
060
061
062    /**
063     * Gets the codec service responsible for managing the encoding and 
064     * decoding of the decorated objects.
065     * 
066     * @return the codec service
067     */
068    LdapApiService getCodecService();
069}