1 /*
2 * Copyright 2022 The Netty Project
3 *
4 * The Netty Project licenses this file to you under the Apache License,
5 * version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
6 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
7 *
8 * https://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, WITHOUT
12 * WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
13 * License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
14 * under the License.
15 */
16 package io.netty.buffer;
17
18 /**
19 * An interface that can be implemented by any object that know how to turn itself into a {@link ByteBuf}.
20 * All {@link ByteBuf} classes implement this interface, and return themselves.
21 */
22 public interface ByteBufConvertible {
23 /**
24 * Turn this object into a {@link ByteBuf}.
25 * This does <strong>not</strong> increment the reference count of the {@link ByteBuf} instance.
26 * The conversion or exposure of the {@link ByteBuf} must be idempotent, so that this method can be called
27 * either once, or multiple times, without causing any change in program behaviour.
28 *
29 * @return A {@link ByteBuf} instance from this object.
30 */
31 ByteBuf asByteBuf();
32 }