001    /****************************************************************
002     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one   *
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004     * distributed with this work for additional information        *
005     * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file   *
006     * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the            *
007     * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance   *
008     * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at   *
009     *                                                              *
010     *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0                 *
011     *                                                              *
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013     * software distributed under the License is distributed on an  *
014     * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY       *
015     * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the    *
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017     * under the License.                                           *
018     ****************************************************************/
019    
020    package org.apache.james.mime4j.stream;
021    
022    import org.apache.james.mime4j.util.ByteSequence;
023    
024    /**
025     * This interface represents an abstract MIME field. A MIME field must have a non <code>null</code>
026     * name and a content body (unfolded but unparsed and possibly encoded). Optionally implementing
027     * classes may also retain the original (raw) representation in a form of {@link ByteSequence}.
028     * <p/>
029     * Specific implementations of this interface may also use a richer model to represent the field
030     * if its body can be parsed into a set of constituent elements.
031     */
032    public interface Field {
033    
034        /**
035         * Returns the name of the field.
036         */
037        String getName();
038    
039        /**
040         * Gets the unparsed and possibly encoded (see RFC 2047) field body string.
041         *
042         * @return the unparsed field body string.
043         */
044        String getBody();
045    
046        /**
047         * Gets original (raw) representation of the field, if available,
048         * <code>null</code> otherwise.
049         */
050        ByteSequence getRaw();
051    
052    }