001/*
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
008 *
009 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010 *
011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015 * limitations under the License.
016 */
017package org.apache.juneau.reflect;
018
019/**
020 * An interface for creating objects from other objects such as a <c>String</c> or <c>Reader</c>.
021 *
022 * <h5 class='section'>See Also:</h5><ul>
023 * </ul>
024 *
025 * @param <I> Input type.
026 * @param <O> Output type.
027 */
028public abstract class Mutater<I,O> {
029
030   /**
031    * Method for instantiating an object from another object.
032    *
033    * @param in The input object.
034    * @return The output object.
035    */
036   public O mutate(I in) {
037      return mutate(null, in);
038   }
039
040   /**
041    * Method for instantiating an object from another object.
042    *
043    * @param outer The context object.
044    * @param in The input object.
045    * @return The output object.
046    */
047   public abstract O mutate(Object outer, I in);
048}