001/*
002 * Sonar, open source software quality management tool.
003 * Copyright (C) 2008-2012 SonarSource
004 * mailto:contact AT sonarsource DOT com
005 *
006 * Sonar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
007 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
008 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
009 * version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
010 *
011 * Sonar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
012 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
014 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
015 *
016 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
017 * License along with Sonar; if not, write to the Free Software
018 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02
019 */
020package org.sonar.channel;
021
022public abstract class Channel<OUTPUT> {
023
024  /**
025   * Tries to consume the character stream at the current reading cursor position (provided by the {@link org.sonar.channel.CodeReader}). If
026   * the character stream is consumed the method must return true and the OUTPUT object can be fed.
027   * 
028   * @param code
029   *          the handle on the input character stream
030   * @param output
031   *          the OUTPUT that can be optionally fed by the Channel
032   * @return false if the Channel doesn't want to consume the character stream, true otherwise.
033   */
034  public abstract boolean consume(CodeReader code, OUTPUT output);
035}