/*
 * ====================================================================
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 * distributed with this work for additional information
 * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 * ====================================================================
 *
 * This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many
 * individuals on behalf of the Apache Software Foundation.  For more
 * information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see
 * <http://www.apache.org/>.
 *
 */

package com.socialize.apache.http.entity.mime.content;

/**
 * Represents common content properties.
 */
public interface ContentDescriptor {

	/**
	 * Returns the body descriptors MIME type.
	 * 
	 * @see #getMediaType()
	 * @see #getSubType()
	 * @return The MIME type, which has been parsed from the content-type
	 *         definition. Must not be null, but "text/plain", if no
	 *         content-type was specified.
	 */
	String getMimeType();

	/**
	 * Gets the defaulted MIME media type for this content. For example
	 * <code>TEXT</code>, <code>IMAGE</code>, <code>MULTIPART</code>
	 * 
	 * @see #getMimeType()
	 * @return the MIME media type when content-type specified, otherwise the
	 *         correct default (<code>TEXT</code>)
	 */
	String getMediaType();

	/**
	 * Gets the defaulted MIME sub type for this content.
	 * 
	 * @see #getMimeType()
	 * @return the MIME media type when content-type is specified, otherwise the
	 *         correct default (<code>PLAIN</code>)
	 */
	String getSubType();

	/**
	 * <p>
	 * The body descriptors character set, defaulted appropriately for the MIME
	 * type.
	 * </p>
	 * <p>
	 * For <code>TEXT</code> types, this will be defaulted to
	 * <code>us-ascii</code>. For other types, when the charset parameter is
	 * missing this property will be null.
	 * </p>
	 * 
	 * @return Character set, which has been parsed from the content-type
	 *         definition. Not null for <code>TEXT</code> types, when unset will
	 *         be set to default <code>us-ascii</code>. For other types, when
	 *         unset, null will be returned.
	 */
	String getCharset();

	/**
	 * Returns the body descriptors transfer encoding.
	 * 
	 * @return The transfer encoding. Must not be null, but "7bit", if no
	 *         transfer-encoding was specified.
	 */
	String getTransferEncoding();

	/**
	 * Returns the body descriptors content-length.
	 * 
	 * @return Content length, if known, or -1, to indicate the absence of a
	 *         content-length header.
	 */
	long getContentLength();

}
