org.apache.avalon.excalibur.source
Interface Source

All Known Subinterfaces:

ModifiableSource

All Known Implementing Classes:

ResourceSource

public interface Source

Description of a source. This interface provides a simple interface for accessing a source of data. The source of data is assumed to not change during the lifetime of the Source object. If you have a data source that can change its content and you want it to reflect it, use a ModifiableSource object instead. When the Source object is no longer needed it must be released using the resolver. This is very similar like looking up components from a ComponentManager. In fact a source object can implement most lifecycle interfaces like Composable, Initializable, Disposable etc.

Version:

CVS $Revision: 1.10 $ $Date: 2002/01/08 13:43:48 $

Author:

Carsten Ziegeler, Ovidiu Predescu

Method Summary

java.io.InputStream	getInputStream() Return an InputStream object to read from the source.
java.lang.String	getSystemId() Return the unique identifer for this source

Method Detail

getInputStream

public java.io.InputStream getInputStream()
                                   throws java.io.IOException

Return an InputStream object to read from the source. This is the data at the point of invocation of this method, so if this is an ModifiableSource object, you might get different content from two invocations.

getSystemId

public java.lang.String getSystemId()

Return the unique identifer for this source