com.webobjects.foundation
Class NSCoding.Support

java.lang.Object
  |
  +--com.webobjects.foundation.NSCoding.Support

Enclosing class:

NSCoding

public abstract static class NSCoding.Support

extends Object

NSCoding.Support is an abstract class that defines a mechanism for one class to provide NSCoding behavior on behalf of another class. Subclasses of NSCoding.Support encode and decode objects of a different class. Subclasses of NSCoding.Support are needed to provide coding for classes whose code you don't own and that don't implement NSCoding.

For example, consider Java Client WebObjects applications that use NSCoding to distribute objects between client and server. Not all objects that Java Client distributes implement NSCoding (java.lang.String, for example). To encode and decode non-NSCoding objects, Java Client uses specialized (private) subclasses of NSCoding.Support.

A subclass of NSCoding.Support should implement the methods encodeWithCoder and decodeObject to encode and decode objects of a specific non-NSCoding class. NSCoding.Support's default implementations of these methods do nothing.

NSCoding.Support manages a registry of Support classes for classes that don't implement NSCoding. The methods setSupportForClass and supportForClass are used to register and access the NSCoding.Support classes for performing coding on non-NSCoding objects. There is pre-register list of NSCoding.Support classes for the following types:

• String
• Boolean
• Number
• Byte
• Short
• Integer
• Long
• Float
• Double
• BigInteger
• BigDecimal
• Date
• Charater

See Also:

NSCoding.encodeWithCoder(NSCoder coder), decodeObject(NSCoder aCoder), setSupportForClass(NSCoding.Support supportClass, Class aClass), supportForClass(Class aClass), NSCoding

Constructor Summary

NSCoding.Support()

Method Summary

Class	classForCoder(Object receiver) NSCoding.Support's default implementation simply returns receiver's actual class.
abstract Object	decodeObject(NSCoder coder) Implemented by subclasses to decode an object of a specific type from the data in coder.
abstract void	encodeWithCoder(Object receiver, NSCoder coder) Implemented by subclasses to encode an object receiver of a specific type using NSCoder coder.
static void	setSupportForClass(NSCoding.Support support, Class aClass) Sets support as the NSCoding.Support class to use for encoding and decoding instances of aClass.
static NSCoding.Support	supportForClass(Class aClass) Gets the registered NSCoding.Support class to encode and decode instances of aClass.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

NSCoding.Support

public NSCoding.Support()

Method Detail

classForCoder

public Class classForCoder(Object receiver)

NSCoding.Support's default implementation simply returns receiver's actual class.

Parameters:

receiver - the object being encoded

Returns:

the class a coder should record as the class for receiver when receiver is encoded.

See Also:

NSCoding.classForCoder()

decodeObject

public abstract Object decodeObject(NSCoder coder)

Implemented by subclasses to decode an object of a specific type from the data in coder.

Parameters:

coder - an NSCoder object that will be used to decode an object out of its data

Returns:

the decoded object

See Also:

NSCoding

encodeWithCoder

public abstract void encodeWithCoder(Object receiver,
                                     NSCoder coder)

Implemented by subclasses to encode an object receiver of a specific type using NSCoder coder.

Parameters:

receiver - the object being encoded

coder - an NSCoder object that will be used to encode receiver

See Also:

NSCoding.encodeWithCoder(NSCoder coder)

setSupportForClass

public static void setSupportForClass(NSCoding.Support support,
                                      Class aClass)

Sets support as the NSCoding.Support class to use for encoding and decoding instances of aClass.

Parameters:

support - the NSCoding.Support class to be registered for aClass

aClass - class whose instances are to be encoded or decoded

supportForClass

public static NSCoding.Support supportForClass(Class aClass)

Gets the registered NSCoding.Support class to encode and decode instances of aClass.

Parameters:

aClass - class whose instances are to be encoded or decoded

Returns:

the NSCoding.Support class if such a class is registered for aClass or null otherwise