/**
 * Copyright (C) 2004 Bas Peters
 *
 * This file is part of MARC4J
 *
 * MARC4J is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * MARC4J is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with MARC4J; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 */

package org.marc4j;

import org.marc4j.converter.CharConverter;
import org.marc4j.marc.Record;

/**
 * Implement this interface to provide a writer for <code>Record</code> objects.
 * <p>
 * See the {@link org.marc4j.marc} package Javadoc for more information about
 * the {@link org.marc4j.marc.Record} object model.
 * </p>
 * 
 * @author Bas Peters
 */
public interface MarcWriter {

    /**
     * Writes a single <code>Record</code> to the output stream.
     * 
     * @param record the Record object
     */
    public void write(Record record);

    /**
     * Sets the character converter.
     * 
     * @param converter the character converter
     */
    public void setConverter(CharConverter converter);

    /**
     * Returns the character converter.
     * 
     * @return CharConverter the character converter
     */
    public CharConverter getConverter();

    /**
     * Closes the writer.
     */
    public void close();
    
    /**
     * Whether the writer expects the record passed in to be encoded in Unicode.
     *
     * @return boolean  whether the writer expects it's input to be encoded in Unicode.
     */
    default public boolean expectsUnicode() { return true; }

}