001    /*
002     *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
003     *  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
004     *  distributed with this work for additional information
005     *  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
006     *  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
007     *  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
008     *  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
009     *  
010     *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
011     *  
012     *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
013     *  software distributed under the License is distributed on an
014     *  "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
015     *  KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
016     *  specific language governing permissions and limitations
017     *  under the License. 
018     *  
019     */
020    
021    package org.apache.directory.server.kerberos.shared.io.encoder;
022    
023    
024    import java.io.IOException;
025    
026    import org.apache.directory.server.kerberos.shared.messages.Encodable;
027    
028    
029    /**
030     * @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
031     * @version $Rev: 540371 $, $Date: 2007-05-22 03:00:43 +0300 (Tue, 22 May 2007) $
032     */
033    public interface Encoder
034    {
035        /**
036         * Encodes an ASN.1 {@link Encodable} object into a byte array.
037         *
038         * @param object
039         * @return The byte array.
040         * @throws IOException
041         */
042        public byte[] encode( Encodable object ) throws IOException;
043    }