/*
* @(#)DataSource.java 1.12 05/11/17
*
* Copyright 2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
*
* This software is the proprietary information of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
* Use is subject to license terms.
*
*/
package javax.activation;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
/**
* The DataSource interface provides the JavaBeans Activation Framework
* with an abstraction of an arbitrary collection of data. It
* provides a type for that data as well as access
* to it in the form of <code>InputStreams</code> and
* <code>OutputStreams</code> where appropriate.
*
* @since 1.6
*/
public interface DataSource {
/**
* This method returns an <code>InputStream</code> representing
* the data and throws the appropriate exception if it can
* not do so. Note that a new <code>InputStream</code> object must be
* returned each time this method is called, and the stream must be
* positioned at the beginning of the data.
*
* @return an InputStream
*/
public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException;
/**
* This method returns an <code>OutputStream</code> where the
* data can be written and throws the appropriate exception if it can
* not do so. Note that a new <code>OutputStream</code> object must
* be returned each time this method is called, and the stream must
* be positioned at the location the data is to be written.
*
* @return an OutputStream
*/
public OutputStream getOutputStream() throws IOException;
/**
* This method returns the MIME type of the data in the form of a
* string. It should always return a valid type. It is suggested
* that getContentType return "application/octet-stream" if the
* DataSource implementation can not determine the data type.
*
* @return the MIME Type
*/
public String getContentType();
/**
* Return the <i>name</i> of this object where the name of the object
* is dependant on the nature of the underlying objects. DataSources
* encapsulating files may choose to return the filename of the object.
* (Typically this would be the last component of the filename, not an
* entire pathname.)
*
* @return the name of the object.
*/
public String getName();
}