001/*
002 *  Copyright 2010 Stephen Colebourne
003 *
004 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005 *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006 *  You may obtain a copy of the License at
007 *
008 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
009 *
010 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
013 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014 *  limitations under the License.
015 */
016package org.joda.convert;
017
018/**
019 * Interface defining conversion from a {@code String}.
020 * <p>
021 * FromStringConverter is an interface and must be implemented with care.
022 * Implementations must be immutable and thread-safe.
023 * 
024 * @param <T>  the type of the converter
025 */
026public interface FromStringConverter<T> {
027
028    /**
029     * Converts the specified object from a {@code String}.
030     * @param cls  the class to convert to, not null
031     * @param str  the string to convert, not null
032     * @return the converted object, may be null but generally not
033     */
034    T convertFromString(Class<? extends T> cls, String str);
035
036}