1 package org.jscsi.target.scsi;
2
3
4 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
5
6
7 /**
8 * This interface specifies methods for serializing an object. The serialized object can be inserted into an existing
9 * {@link ByteBuffer} of sufficient size at an arbitrary position.
10 * <p>
11 * This interface is implemented by the classes representing sense and response data (as well as components thereof) to
12 * SCSI requests, which are returned to the iSCSI initiator in the SCSI Response PDU's data segment.
13 * <p>
14 * Additional care must be taken when implementing objects consisting of several {@link ISerializable} components, not
15 * to overwrite the fields of another component. The advantage of this strategy, however, will be higher speed, since
16 * unnecessary buffer-to-buffer copying is avoided.
17 *
18 * @author Andreas Ergenzinger
19 */
20 public interface ISerializable {
21
22 /**
23 * Inserts a serialized representation of the object into the specified {@link ByteBuffer}. The serialized object
24 * will occupy the byte positions from <i>index</i> to <i>index + {@link #size()} - 1</i>.
25 *
26 * @param byteBuffer where to insert the serialized object representation
27 * @param index the position of the first byte of the serialized object in the {@link ByteBuffer}
28 */
29 public void serialize (ByteBuffer byteBuffer, int index);
30
31 /**
32 * Returns the size in bytes of the object's serialized representation.
33 *
34 * @return the size in bytes of the object's serialized representation
35 */
36 public int size ();
37
38 }