/*
 * 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
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 */
package org.hibernate.type;
import org.hibernate.dialect.Dialect;

Additional contract for a Type that may appear as an SQL literal 
Author:
Gavin King, Steve Ebersole/**
 * Additional contract for a {@link Type} that may appear as an SQL literal
 *
 * @author Gavin King
 * @author Steve Ebersole
 */
public interface LiteralType<T> {
	
Convert the value into a string representation, suitable for embedding in an SQL statement as a
literal.
Params:
value – The value to convert
dialect – The SQL dialect
Throws:
Exception – Indicates an issue converting the value to literal string.
Returns:
The value's string representation/**
	 * Convert the value into a string representation, suitable for embedding in an SQL statement as a
	 * literal.
	 *
	 * @param value The value to convert
	 * @param dialect The SQL dialect
	 *
	 * @return The value's string representation
	 * 
	 * @throws Exception Indicates an issue converting the value to literal string.
	 */
	public String objectToSQLString(T value, Dialect dialect) throws Exception;

}