/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2010, Red Hat Inc. or third-party contributors as
 * indicated by the @author tags or express copyright attribution
 * statements applied by the authors.  All third-party contributions are
 * distributed under license by Red Hat Inc.
 *
 * This copyrighted material is made available to anyone wishing to use, modify,
 * copy, or redistribute it subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
 * or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this distribution; if not, write to:
 * Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 * 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
 * Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
 */
package org.hibernate.engine.jdbc;

import java.io.Reader;

Wraps a character stream (reader) to also provide the length (number of characters) which is needed
when binding.
Author:
Steve Ebersole/**
 * Wraps a character stream (reader) to also provide the length (number of characters) which is needed
 * when binding.
 *
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface CharacterStream {
	
Provides access to the underlying data as a Reader.
Returns:
The reader./**
	 * Provides access to the underlying data as a Reader.
	 *
	 * @return The reader.
	 */
	public Reader asReader();

	
Provides access to the underlying data as a String.
Returns:
The underlying String data/**
	 * Provides access to the underlying data as a String.
	 *
	 * @return The underlying String data
	 */
	public String asString();

	
Retrieve the number of characters.
Returns:
The number of characters./**
	 * Retrieve the number of characters.
	 *
	 * @return The number of characters.
	 */
	public long getLength();

	
Release any underlying resources.
/**
	 * Release any underlying resources.
	 */
	public void release();
}