/*
 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 *  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 *  distributed with this work for additional information
 *  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
 *  to you 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
 *
 *    https://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 org.grails.encoder;

import java.util.Set;

/**
 * Information about the codec that identifies it and tells it's aliases.
 *
 * @author Lari Hotari
 * @since 2.3
 */
public interface CodecIdentifier {

    /**
     * Gets the unique name of the codec.
     *
     * @return the codec name
     */
    String getCodecName();

    /**
     * Gets the aliases for this codec. Aliases are used in registering
     * "encodeAs*" and "decode*" metamethods in org.grails.commons.DefaultGrailsCodecClass
     *
     * @return the codec aliases
     */
    Set<String> getCodecAliases();

    /**
     * Checks if this codec is equivalent to some other codec
     *
     * @param other
     *            the CodecIdentifier of the other codec
     * @return true, if is equivalent
     */
    boolean isEquivalent(CodecIdentifier other);
}
