001// Copyright 2004, 2005 The Apache Software Foundation
002//
003// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
004// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
005// 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
010// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
011// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
012// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
013// limitations under the License.
014
015package org.apache.tapestry.coerce;
016
017/** 
018 * Converts a value to a specific (implicit) type.
019 * 
020 * @author Howard M. Lewis Ship
021 * @since 4.0
022 */
023public interface TypeConverter
024{
025    /**
026     * Converts the value.
027     * 
028     * @param value the value to be converted (which may be null)
029     * @return the value converted to a specific type; different implementations of TypeConverter
030     * will return different types.
031     * @throws org.apache.hivemind.ApplicationRuntimeException if the value can not be converted
032     */
033    public Object convertValue(Object value);
034}