/* ObjectOutput.java -- Interface for writing objects to a stream
   Copyright (C) 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
 
GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307 USA.

As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to
produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the
resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */


package java.io;

/**
  * This interface extends <code>DataOutput</code> to provide the additional
  * facility of writing object instances to a stream.  It also adds some
  * additional methods to make the interface more <code>OutputStream</code> like.
  *
  * @version 0.0
  *
  * @author Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com)
  */
public interface ObjectOutput extends DataOutput
{


/**
  * This method writes the specified byte to the output stream.
  *
  * @param b The byte to write.
  *
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs.
  */
public abstract void
write(int b) throws IOException;

/*************************************************************************/

/**
  * This method writes all the bytes in the specified byte array to the
  * output stream.
  *
  * @param buf The array of bytes to write.
  * 
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs.
  */
public abstract void
write(byte[] buf) throws IOException;

/*************************************************************************/

/**
  * This method writes <code>len</code> bytes from the specified array
  * starting at index <code>offset</code> into that array.
  *
  * @param buf The byte array to write from.
  * @param offset The index into the byte array to start writing from.
  * @param len The number of bytes to write.
  *
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs.
  */
public abstract void
write(byte[] buf, int offset, int len) throws IOException;

/*************************************************************************/

/**
  * This method writes a object instance to a stream.  The format of the
  * data written is determined by the actual implementation of this method
  *
  * @param obj The object to write
  *
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs
  */
public abstract void
writeObject(Object obj) throws IOException;

/*************************************************************************/

/**
  * This method causes any buffered data to be flushed out to the underlying
  * stream
  *
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs
  */
public abstract void
flush() throws IOException;

/*************************************************************************/

/**
  * This method closes the underlying stream.
  *
  * @exception IOException If an error occurs
  */
public abstract void
close() throws IOException;

} // interface ObjectOutput