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      1 /* Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
      2  * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
      3  * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
      4  * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
      5  * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
      6  * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
      7  *
      8  *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
      9  *
     10  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
     11  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
     12  * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
     13  * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
     14  * limitations under the License.
     15  */
     16 
     17 package java.util;
     18 
     19 /**
     20  * Classes that handle custom formatting for the 's' specifier of {@code Formatter}
     21  * should implement the {@code Formattable} interface. It gives basic control over
     22  * formatting objects.
     23  *
     24  * @see Formatter
     25  */
     26 
     27 public interface Formattable {
     28 
     29     /**
     30      * Formats the object using the specified {@code Formatter}.
     31      *
     32      * @param formatter
     33      *            the {@code Formatter} to use.
     34      * @param flags
     35      *            the flags applied to the output format, which is a bitmask
     36      *            that is any combination of {@code FormattableFlags.LEFT_JUSTIFY},
     37      *            {@code FormattableFlags.UPPERCASE}, and {@code FormattableFlags.ALTERNATE}. If
     38      *            no such flag is set, the output is formatted by the default
     39      *            formatting of the implementation.
     40      * @param width
     41      *            the minimum number of characters that should be written to the
     42      *            output. If the length of the converted value is less than {@code width}
     43      *            Additional space characters (' ') are added to the output if the
     44      *            as needed to make up the difference. These spaces are added at the
     45      *            beginning by default unless the flag
     46      *            FormattableFlags.LEFT_JUSTIFY is set, which denotes that
     47      *            padding should be added at the end. If width is -1, then
     48      *            minimum length is not enforced.
     49      * @param precision
     50      *            the maximum number of characters that can be written to the
     51      *            output. The length of the output is trimmed down to this size
     52      *            before the width padding is applied. If the precision
     53      *            is -1, then maximum length is not enforced.
     54      * @throws IllegalFormatException
     55      *             if any of the parameters is not supported.
     56      */
     57     void formatTo(Formatter formatter, int flags, int width, int precision)
     58             throws IllegalFormatException;
     59 }
     60