/*
 * Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
/*
 * $Id: Serializer.java,v 1.2 2004/02/17 04:18:19 minchau Exp $
 */
package com.sun.org.apache.xml.internal.serializer;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Properties;

import com.sun.org.apache.xml.internal.serializer.DOMSerializer; 

import org.xml.sax.ContentHandler;

/**
 * The Serializer interface is implemented by Serializers to publish methods to
 * get and set streams and writers, to set the output properties, and get the
 * Serializer as a ContentHandler or DOMSerializer.
 */
public interface Serializer {

    /**
     * Specifies an output stream to which the document should be
     * serialized. This method should not be called while the
     * serializer is in the process of serializing a document.
     * <p>
     * The encoding specified in the output {@link Properties} is used, or
     * if no encoding was specified, the default for the selected
     * output method.
     *
     * @param output The output stream
     */
    public void setOutputStream(OutputStream output);

    /**
     * Get the output stream where the events will be serialized to.
     *
     * @return reference to the result stream, or null of only a writer was
     * set.
     */
    public OutputStream getOutputStream();

    /**
     * Specifies a writer to which the document should be serialized.
     * This method should not be called while the serializer is in
     * the process of serializing a document.
     * <p>
     * The encoding specified for the output {@link Properties} must be
     * identical to the output format used with the writer.
     *
     * @param writer The output writer stream
     */
    public void setWriter(Writer writer);

    /**
     * Get the character stream where the events will be serialized to.
     *
     * @return Reference to the result Writer, or null.
     */
    public Writer getWriter();

    /**
     * Specifies an output format for this serializer. It the
     * serializer has already been associated with an output format,
     * it will switch to the new format. This method should not be
     * called while the serializer is in the process of serializing
     * a document.
     *
     * @param format The output format to use
     */
    public void setOutputFormat(Properties format);

    /**
     * Returns the output format properties for this serializer.
     *
     * @return The output format in use
     */
    public Properties getOutputFormat();

    /**
     * Return a {@link ContentHandler} interface into this serializer.
     * If the serializer does not support the {@link ContentHandler}
     * interface, it should return null.
     *
     * @return A {@link ContentHandler} interface into this serializer,
     *  or null if the serializer is not SAX 2 capable
     * @throws IOException An I/O exception occured
     */
    public ContentHandler asContentHandler() throws IOException;

    /**
     * Return a {@link DOMSerializer} interface into this serializer.
     * If the serializer does not support the {@link DOMSerializer}
     * interface, it should return null.
     *
     * @return A {@link DOMSerializer} interface into this serializer,
     *  or null if the serializer is not DOM capable
     * @throws IOException An I/O exception occured
     */
    public DOMSerializer asDOMSerializer() throws IOException;

    /**
     * Resets the serializer. If this method returns true, the
     * serializer may be used for subsequent serialization of new
     * documents. It is possible to change the output format and
     * output stream prior to serializing, or to use the existing
     * output format and output stream.
     *
     * @return True if serializer has been reset and can be reused
     */
    public boolean reset();
}