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      1 /*
      2  * Copyright (c) 2003, 2004, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
      3  * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
      4  *
      5  * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
      6  * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
      7  * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates this
      8  * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
      9  * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
     10  *
     11  * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
     12  * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
     13  * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
     14  * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
     15  * accompanied this code).
     16  *
     17  * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
     18  * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
     19  * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
     20  *
     21  * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
     22  * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any
     23  * questions.
     24  */
     25 
     26 package java.lang;
     27 
     28 import java.io.IOException;
     29 
     30 /**
     31  * An object to which <tt>char</tt> sequences and values can be appended.  The
     32  * <tt>Appendable</tt> interface must be implemented by any class whose
     33  * instances are intended to receive formatted output from a {@link
     34  * java.util.Formatter}.
     35  *
     36  * <p> The characters to be appended should be valid Unicode characters as
     37  * described in <a href="Character.html#unicode">Unicode Character
     38  * Representation</a>.  Note that supplementary characters may be composed of
     39  * multiple 16-bit <tt>char</tt> values.
     40  *
     41  * <p> Appendables are not necessarily safe for multithreaded access.  Thread
     42  * safety is the responsibility of classes that extend and implement this
     43  * interface.
     44  *
     45  * <p> Since this interface may be implemented by existing classes
     46  * with different styles of error handling there is no guarantee that
     47  * errors will be propagated to the invoker.
     48  *
     49  * @since 1.5
     50  */
     51 public interface Appendable {
     52 
     53     /**
     54      * Appends the specified character sequence to this <tt>Appendable</tt>.
     55      *
     56      * <p> Depending on which class implements the character sequence
     57      * <tt>csq</tt>, the entire sequence may not be appended.  For
     58      * instance, if <tt>csq</tt> is a {@link java.nio.CharBuffer} then
     59      * the subsequence to append is defined by the buffer's position and limit.
     60      *
     61      * @param  csq
     62      *         The character sequence to append.  If <tt>csq</tt> is
     63      *         <tt>null</tt>, then the four characters <tt>"null"</tt> are
     64      *         appended to this Appendable.
     65      *
     66      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
     67      *
     68      * @throws  IOException
     69      *          If an I/O error occurs
     70      */
     71     Appendable append(CharSequence csq) throws IOException;
     72 
     73     /**
     74      * Appends a subsequence of the specified character sequence to this
     75      * <tt>Appendable</tt>.
     76      *
     77      * <p> An invocation of this method of the form <tt>out.append(csq, start,
     78      * end)</tt> when <tt>csq</tt> is not <tt>null</tt>, behaves in
     79      * exactly the same way as the invocation
     80      *
     81      * <pre>
     82      *     out.append(csq.subSequence(start, end)) </pre>
     83      *
     84      * @param  csq
     85      *         The character sequence from which a subsequence will be
     86      *         appended.  If <tt>csq</tt> is <tt>null</tt>, then characters
     87      *         will be appended as if <tt>csq</tt> contained the four
     88      *         characters <tt>"null"</tt>.
     89      *
     90      * @param  start
     91      *         The index of the first character in the subsequence
     92      *
     93      * @param  end
     94      *         The index of the character following the last character in the
     95      *         subsequence
     96      *
     97      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
     98      *
     99      * @throws  IndexOutOfBoundsException
    100      *          If <tt>start</tt> or <tt>end</tt> are negative, <tt>start</tt>
    101      *          is greater than <tt>end</tt>, or <tt>end</tt> is greater than
    102      *          <tt>csq.length()</tt>
    103      *
    104      * @throws  IOException
    105      *          If an I/O error occurs
    106      */
    107     Appendable append(CharSequence csq, int start, int end) throws IOException;
    108 
    109     /**
    110      * Appends the specified character to this <tt>Appendable</tt>.
    111      *
    112      * @param  c
    113      *         The character to append
    114      *
    115      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
    116      *
    117      * @throws  IOException
    118      *          If an I/O error occurs
    119      */
    120     Appendable append(char c) throws IOException;
    121 }
    122