src/main/java/com/beust/jcommander/IStringConverter.java

/**
 * Copyright (C) 2010 the original author or authors.
 * See the notice.md file distributed with this work for additional
 * information regarding copyright ownership.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.beust.jcommander;

/**
 * An interface that converts strings to any arbitrary type.
 * 
 * If your class implements a constructor that takes a String, this
 * constructor will be used to instantiate your converter and the
 * parameter will receive the name of the option that's being parsed,
 * which can be useful to issue a more useful error message if the
 * conversion fails.
 * 
 * You can also extend BaseConverter to make your life easier.
 * 
 * @author cbeust
 */
public interface IStringConverter<T> {
  /**
   * @return an object of type <T> created from the parameter value.
   */
  T convert(String value);
}