Package org.apache.commons.codec

Interface Decoder

All Known Subinterfaces:

BinaryDecoder, StringDecoder

All Known Implementing Classes:

Base32, Base64, BaseNCodec, BCodec, BinaryCodec, Hex, QCodec, QuotedPrintableCodec, URLCodec

public interface Decoder

Provides the highest level of abstraction for Decoders.

This is the sister interface of Encoder. All Decoders implement this common generic interface. Allows a user to pass a generic Object to any Decoder implementation in the codec package.

One of the two interfaces at the center of the codec package.

Version:

$Id: Decoder.java 1379145 2012-08-30 21:02:52Z tn $

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
java.lang.Object	decode(java.lang.Object source)	Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded" Object.

Method Detail

decode

java.lang.Object decode(java.lang.Object source)
                 throws DecoderException

Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded" Object. Note that the implementation of this interface will try to cast the Object parameter to the specific type expected by a particular Decoder implementation. If a ClassCastException occurs this decode method will throw a DecoderException.

Parameters:

source - the object to decode

Returns:

a 'decoded" object

Throws:

DecoderException - a decoder exception can be thrown for any number of reasons. Some good candidates are that the parameter passed to this method is null, a param cannot be cast to the appropriate type for a specific encoder.