/* Copyright (C) 2009  CSE,IIT Bombay  http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in

This file is part of the ConStore open source storage facility for concept-nets.

ConStore is free software and distributed under the 
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License;
you can copy, distribute and transmit the work
with the work attribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
You may not use this work for commercial purposes and may not alter, 
transform, or build upon this work.

Please refer the legal code of the license, available at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode

ConStore is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  */

package iitb.con.ds;

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;

/**
 * Interface to serialize (from object to bytes) and deserialize (from bytes to object) items.
 * 
 * @author Prathab K
 * @see ByteBuffer
 */
public interface ItemSerializer<T> {

    /**
     * Serializes the given object to bytes
     * @param t object
     * @return serialized object as {@link ByteBuffer}
     */
    public ByteBuffer serialize(T t);
    
    /**
     * Deserializes the given bytes to object
     * @param buf bytes as {@link ByteBuffer}
     * @return deserialized object
     */
    public T deSerialize(ByteBuffer buf);
    
    /**
     * Deserializes the given bytes to object
     * @param buf bytes as {@link ByteBuffer}
     * @param name attribute name
     * @return deserialized attribute value as <tt>Object</tt>
     */
    public Object attributeDeSerialize(ByteBuffer buf, Object name);
}