net.ontopia.topicmaps.core
Interface TopicMapReaderIF

All Known Implementing Classes:

net.ontopia.topicmaps.impl.utils.AbstractTopicMapReader, CTMTopicMapReader, JTMTopicMapReader, LTMTopicMapReader, RDBMSTopicMapReader, RDFTopicMapReader, TMXMLReader, XTMTopicMapReader

public interface TopicMapReaderIF

PUBLIC: A topic map reader is used to read topic maps from an implementation specific, implicit source.

See Also:

net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.TopicMapImporterIF , net.ontopia.topicmaps.core.TopicMapWriterIF

Method Summary

TopicMapIF	read() PUBLIC: Reads the next topic map available from some implicit, implementation dependent source.
java.util.Collection<TopicMapIF>	readAll() PUBLIC: Reads all the topic map available from some implicit, implementation dependent source.

Method Detail

read

TopicMapIF read()
                throws java.io.IOException

PUBLIC: Reads the next topic map available from some implicit, implementation dependent source.

A topic map source may contain multiple topic maps. The read method returns the next topic map that is available from that source. null is returned when there are no more topic maps available. In a sense this is iterator-like behaviour.

Returns:

The next topic map read from the source; an object implementing TopicMapIF. null is returned when there are no more topic maps available from the source.

Throws:

java.io.IOException - Thrown if reading the source fails.

readAll

java.util.Collection<TopicMapIF> readAll()
                                         throws java.io.IOException

PUBLIC: Reads all the topic map available from some implicit, implementation dependent source.

A topic map source may contain multiple topic maps. The readAll method returns a collection contain all the topic maps available from the source.

Returns:

A collection containing all the topic maps read from the source; objects implementing TopicMapIF.

Throws:

java.io.IOException - Thrown if reading the source fails.