package org.apache.commons.ognl;

 /*

  * 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.

  */

 import java.lang.reflect.Member;

 import java.util.Map;

 /**

  * Interface for accessing the type conversion facilities within a context.

  *

  * @author Luke Blanshard (blanshlu@netscape.net)

  * @author Drew Davidson (drew@ognl.org)

  */

 public interface TypeConverter

 {

     /**

      * Converts the given value to a given type. The OGNL context, target, member and name of property being set are

      * given. This method should be able to handle conversion in general without any context, target, member or property

      * name specified.

      *

      * @param context      OGNL context under which the conversion is being done

      * @param target       target object in which the property is being set

      * @param member       member (Constructor, Method or Field) being set

      * @param propertyName property name being set

      * @param value        value to be converted

      * @param toType       type to which value is converted

      * @return Converted value of type toType or TypeConverter.NoConversionPossible to indicate that the conversion was

      *         not possible.

      */

     <T> T convertValue( Map<String, Object> context, Object target, Member member, String propertyName, Object value,

                         Class<T> toType );

 }