Interface Buffer
- All Known Implementing Classes:
ArrayBuffer
,ArrayBuffer.Segment
,BufferAllocator
,FileBuffer
,FileBuffer.Segment
public interface Buffer
The
Buffer
interface represents a collection of bytes
that can be written to and later read. This is used to provide a
region of memory is such a way that the underlying representation
of that memory is independent of its use. Typically buffers are
implemented as either allocated byte arrays or files.- See Also:
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Method Summary
Modifier and TypeMethodDescriptionallocate()
This method is used to allocate a segment of this buffer as a separate buffer object.append
(byte[] array) This method is used to append bytes to the end of the buffer.append
(byte[] array, int off, int len) This method is used to append bytes to the end of the buffer.void
clear()
This will clear all data from the buffer.void
close()
This method is used to ensure the buffer can be closed.encode()
This method is used to acquire the buffered bytes as a string.This method is used to acquire the buffered bytes as a string.long
length()
This is used to provide the number of bytes that have been written to the buffer.open()
This method is used so that a buffer can be represented as a stream of bytes.
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Method Details
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allocate
This method is used to allocate a segment of this buffer as a separate buffer object. This allows the buffer to be sliced in to several smaller independent buffers, while still allowing the parent buffer to manage a single buffer. This is useful if the parent is split in to logically smaller segments.- Returns:
- this returns a buffer which is a segment of this buffer
- Throws:
IOException
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open
This method is used so that a buffer can be represented as a stream of bytes. This provides a quick means to access the data that has been written to the buffer. It wraps the buffer within an input stream so that it can be read directly.- Returns:
- a stream that can be used to read the buffered bytes
- Throws:
IOException
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encode
This method is used to acquire the buffered bytes as a string. This is useful if the contents need to be manipulated as a string or transferred into another encoding. If the UTF-8 content encoding is not supported the platform default is used, however this is unlikely as UTF-8 should be supported.- Returns:
- this returns a UTF-8 encoding of the buffer contents
- Throws:
IOException
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encode
This method is used to acquire the buffered bytes as a string. This is useful if the contents need to be manipulated as a string or transferred into another encoding. This will convert the bytes using the specified character encoding format.- Parameters:
charset
- this is the charset to encode the data with- Returns:
- this returns the encoding of the buffer contents
- Throws:
IOException
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append
This method is used to append bytes to the end of the buffer. This will expand the capacity of the buffer if there is not enough space to accommodate the extra bytes.- Parameters:
array
- this is the byte array to append to this buffer- Returns:
- this returns this buffer for another operation
- Throws:
IOException
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append
This method is used to append bytes to the end of the buffer. This will expand the capacity of the buffer if there is not enough space to accommodate the extra bytes.- Parameters:
array
- this is the byte array to append to this bufferoff
- this is the offset to begin reading the bytes fromlen
- the number of bytes to be read from the array- Returns:
- this returns this buffer for another operation
- Throws:
IOException
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clear
This will clear all data from the buffer. This simply sets the count to be zero, it will not clear the memory occupied by the instance as the internal buffer will remain. This allows the memory occupied to be reused as many times as is required.- Throws:
IOException
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close
This method is used to ensure the buffer can be closed. Once the buffer is closed it is an immutable collection of bytes and can not longer be modified. This ensures that it can be passed by value without the risk of modification of the bytes.- Throws:
IOException
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length
long length()This is used to provide the number of bytes that have been written to the buffer. This increases as bytes are appended to the buffer. if the buffer is cleared this resets to zero.- Returns:
- this returns the number of bytes within the buffer
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