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    package org.apache.commons.convert;
020    
021    /**
022     * ConverterCreator interface. Classes implement this interface to create
023     * a converter that can convert one Java object type to another.
024     * 
025     * <p>
026     * <code>ConverterCreator</code> is used to dynamically create converters
027     * for target classes that implement an interface.
028     * </p>
029     */
030    public interface ConverterCreator {
031        /** Creates a Converter that can convert the <code>sourceClass</code> to
032         * the <code>targetClass</code>. Returns <code>null</code> if this creator
033         * doesn't support the class pair.
034         *
035         * @param sourceClass The source <code>Class</code> to convert from
036         * @param targetClass The target <code>Class</code> to convert to
037         * @return A <code>Converter</code> that can convert <code>sourceClass</code>
038         * to <code>targetClass</code>
039         */
040        public <S, T> Converter<S, T> createConverter(Class<S> sourceClass, Class<T> targetClass);
041    }