1 /* 2 * Licensed to the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, 3 * Inc. (UCAID) under one or more contributor license agreements. See the 4 * NOTICE file distributed with this work for additional information regarding 5 * copyright ownership. The UCAID licenses this file to You under the Apache 6 * License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in 7 * compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at 8 * 9 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 10 * 11 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 12 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 13 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 14 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 15 * limitations under the License. 16 */ 17 18 package edu.internet2.middleware.shibboleth.common.attribute.encoding; 19 20 import edu.internet2.middleware.shibboleth.common.attribute.BaseAttribute; 21 22 23 /** 24 * Attribute encoders convert {@link BaseAttribute}s into protocol specific representations. 25 * 26 * Encoders may have contain a category that can be used to distingush encoder types from 27 * each other. This inteded to be used to look up an encoder that can be used to encode 28 * attributes in accordance with a defined specification or tranmission protcol. 29 * 30 * Encoders MUST be thread-safe and stateless. 31 * 32 * @param <EncodedType> the type of object created by encoding the attribute 33 */ 34 public interface AttributeEncoder<EncodedType> { 35 36 /** 37 * Get the name of the attribute. 38 * 39 * @return name of the attribute 40 */ 41 public String getAttributeName(); 42 43 /** 44 * Sets the name of the attribute. 45 * 46 * @param attributeName name of the attribute 47 */ 48 public void setAttributeName(String attributeName); 49 50 /** 51 * Enocdes the attribute into a protocol specific representations. 52 * 53 * @param attribute the attribute to encode 54 * 55 * @return the Object the attribute was encoded into 56 * 57 * @throws AttributeEncodingException if unable to successfully encode attribute 58 */ 59 public EncodedType encode(BaseAttribute attribute) throws AttributeEncodingException; 60 }