    001/*
    002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
    003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
    004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
    005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
    006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
    007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    008 *
    009 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    010 *
    011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    015 * limitations under the License.
    016 */
    017
    018package org.apache.commons.beanutils2;
    019
    020/**
    021 * <p>
    022 * General purpose data type converter that can be registered and used within the BeanUtils package to manage the conversion of objects from one type to
    023 * another.
    024 * </p>
    025 *
    026 * <p>
    027 * Converter subclasses bundled with the BeanUtils library are required to be thread-safe, as users of the library may call conversion methods from more than
    028 * one thread simultaneously.
    029 * </p>
    030 *
    031 * <p>
    032 * Custom converter subclasses created by users of the library can be non-thread-safe if the application using them is single-threaded. However it is
    033 * recommended that they be written in a thread-safe manner anyway.
    034 * </p>
    035 *
    036 * @param <T> the convert type.
    037 * @since 1.3
    038 */
    039@FunctionalInterface
    040public interface Converter<T> {
    041
    042    /**
    043     * Convert the specified input object into an output object of the specified type.
    044     *
    045     * @param <R>   the result type.
    046     * @param type  Data type to which this value should be converted
    047     * @param value The input value to be converted
    048     * @return The converted value
    049     * @throws ConversionException if conversion cannot be performed successfully
    050     */
    051    <R> R convert(Class<R> type, Object value);
    052
    053}