001/* BoxedValueHelper.java --
002   Copyright (C) 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
003
004This file is part of GNU Classpath.
005
006GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
007it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
008the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
009any later version.
010
011GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
012WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
014General Public License for more details.
015
016You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
017along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
018Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
01902110-1301 USA.
020
021Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
022making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
023conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
024combination.
025
026As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
027permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
028executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
029modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
030terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
031independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
032module.  An independent module is a module which is not derived from
033or based on this library.  If you modify this library, you may extend
034this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
035obligated to do so.  If you do not wish to do so, delete this
036exception statement from your version. */
037
038
039package org.omg.CORBA.portable;
040
041import java.io.Serializable;
042
043/**
044 * Provides a helper operations for the boxed value type.
045 * A boxed value type is a value type with no inheritance, no methods
046 * and with a single state member. No additional properties can
047 * be defined. It is an error to box value types.
048 *
049 * The value type may have its own helper, implementing
050 * this interface.
051 *
052 * @author Audrius Meskauskas, Lithuania (AudriusA@Bioinformatics.org)
053 */
054public interface BoxedValueHelper
055{
056  /**
057   * Get the repository id of this value type.
058   *
059   * @return a repository id.
060   */
061  String get_id();
062
063  /**
064   * Read this value type from the CDR stream.
065   *
066   * @param istream is a stream to read from.
067   *
068   * @return a loaded value type.
069   */
070  Serializable read_value(InputStream istream);
071
072  /**
073   * Write this value type to the CDR stream.
074   *
075   * @param ostream a stream to write to.
076   * @param value a value to write.
077   */
078  void write_value(OutputStream ostream, Serializable value);
079}