001/****************************************************************
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one   *
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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                 *
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019
020package org.apache.james.mime4j.stream;
021
022import org.apache.james.mime4j.util.ByteSequence;
023
024/**
025 * This interface represents an abstract MIME field. A MIME field must have a non <code>null</code>
026 * name and a content body (unfolded but unparsed and possibly encoded). Optionally implementing
027 * classes may also retain the original (raw) representation in a form of {@link ByteSequence}.
028 * <p/>
029 * Specific implementations of this interface may also use a richer model to represent the field
030 * if its body can be parsed into a set of constituent elements.
031 */
032public interface Field {
033
034    /**
035     * Returns the name of the field.
036     */
037    String getName();
038
039    /**
040     * Gets the unparsed and possibly encoded (see RFC 2047) field body string.
041     *
042     * @return the unparsed field body string.
043     */
044    String getBody();
045
046    /**
047     * Gets original (raw) representation of the field, if available,
048     * <code>null</code> otherwise.
049     */
050    ByteSequence getRaw();
051
052}