Interface for defining objects which perform bi-directional conversion between string values and Java objects. A unified conversion interface is required for serializing and de-serializing data values to and from a textual representation, which is a common requirement when interacting with a network or web-based data source.
For many Java classes (Date, Color, etc), an instance may be represented in a variety of string formats, hence both conversion methods take an optional format
parameter for specifying an unambiguous string format to use during conversion. A Converter class must document the format classes it supports and must also accept a null
value for the format
parameter, in which case a suitable and well-documented default should be used. Converters should support standard formats whenever possible.
@see Converters#get
@author Amy Fowler
@version 1.0