------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--                                                                          --
--                           POLYORB COMPONENTS                             --
--                                                                          --
--              P O L Y O R B . R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S               --
--                                                                          --
--                                 S p e c                                  --
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--         Copyright (C) 2001-2012, Free Software Foundation, Inc.          --
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-- sion.  This software is distributed in the hope  that it will be useful, --
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--                  PolyORB is maintained by AdaCore                        --
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--  Data representation methods.

--  A Representation is a method for transforming an arbitrary piece
--  of data (in the form of an 'Any' object) into a sequence of
--  Stream_Elements, and back.

with PolyORB.Any;
with PolyORB.Buffers;
with PolyORB.Errors;

package PolyORB.Representations is

   pragma Preelaborate;

   type Representation is abstract tagged limited private;
   type Representation_Access is access all Representation'Class;

   procedure Marshall_From_Any
     (R      : access Representation;
      Buffer : access Buffers.Buffer_Type;
      Data   : Any.Any_Container'Class;
      Error  : in out Errors.Error_Container) is abstract;
   --  Store a representation of Data into Buffer according to representation
   --  convention R.

   procedure Unmarshall_To_Any
     (R      : access Representation;
      Buffer : access Buffers.Buffer_Type;
      Data   : in out Any.Any_Container'Class;
      Error  : in out Errors.Error_Container) is abstract;
   --  Set the value of Data from the representation stored in Buffer according
   --  to representation convetion R.

   procedure Release (R : in out Representation);
   --  Deallocate resources associated with the given representation engine

private

   type Representation is abstract tagged limited null record;

end PolyORB.Representations;
