001// ***************************************************************************************************************************
002// * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file *
003// * distributed with this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file        *
004// * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance            *
005// * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at                                                              *
006// *                                                                                                                         *
007// *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0                                                                             *
008// *                                                                                                                         *
009// * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an  *
010// * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the        *
011// * specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.                                              *
012// ***************************************************************************************************************************
013package org.apache.juneau;
014
015import java.io.*;
016
017import org.apache.juneau.http.*;
018
019/**
020 * Interface that identifies that an object can be serialized directly to a writer.
021 *
022 * <p>
023 * Instances must identify the media type of the content by implementing the {@link #getMediaType()} method.
024 */
025public interface Writable {
026
027   /**
028    * Serialize this object to the specified writer.
029    *
030    * @param w The writer to write to.
031    * @return The same writer passed in.
032    * @throws IOException Thrown by underlying stream.
033    */
034   Writer writeTo(Writer w) throws IOException;
035
036   /**
037    * Returns the serialized media type for this resource (e.g. <js>"text/html"</js>)
038    *
039    * @return The media type, or <jk>null</jk> if the media type is not known.
040    */
041   MediaType getMediaType();
042}