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25 
26 package java.lang;
27 
28 import java.io.IOException;
29 
30 /**
31  * An object to which <tt>char</tt> sequences and values can be appended.  The
32  * <tt>Appendable</tt> interface must be implemented by any class whose
33  * instances are intended to receive formatted output from a {@link
34  * java.util.Formatter}.
35  *
36  * <p> The characters to be appended should be valid Unicode characters as
37  * described in <a href="Character.html#unicode">Unicode Character
38  * Representation</a>.  Note that supplementary characters may be composed of
39  * multiple 16-bit <tt>char</tt> values.
40  *
41  * <p> Appendables are not necessarily safe for multithreaded access.  Thread
42  * safety is the responsibility of classes that extend and implement this
43  * interface.
44  *
45  * <p> Since this interface may be implemented by existing classes
46  * with different styles of error handling there is no guarantee that
47  * errors will be propagated to the invoker.
48  *
49  * @since 1.5
50  */
51 public interface Appendable {
52 
53     /**
54      * Appends the specified character sequence to this <tt>Appendable</tt>.
55      *
56      * <p> Depending on which class implements the character sequence
57      * <tt>csq</tt>, the entire sequence may not be appended.  For
58      * instance, if <tt>csq</tt> is a {@link java.nio.CharBuffer} then
59      * the subsequence to append is defined by the buffer's position and limit.
60      *
61      * @param  csq
62      *         The character sequence to append.  If <tt>csq</tt> is
63      *         <tt>null</tt>, then the four characters <tt>"null"</tt> are
64      *         appended to this Appendable.
65      *
66      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
67      *
68      * @throws  IOException
69      *          If an I/O error occurs
70      */
append(CharSequence csq)71     Appendable append(CharSequence csq) throws IOException;
72 
73     /**
74      * Appends a subsequence of the specified character sequence to this
75      * <tt>Appendable</tt>.
76      *
77      * <p> An invocation of this method of the form <tt>out.append(csq, start,
78      * end)</tt> when <tt>csq</tt> is not <tt>null</tt>, behaves in
79      * exactly the same way as the invocation
80      *
81      * <pre>
82      *     out.append(csq.subSequence(start, end)) </pre>
83      *
84      * @param  csq
85      *         The character sequence from which a subsequence will be
86      *         appended.  If <tt>csq</tt> is <tt>null</tt>, then characters
87      *         will be appended as if <tt>csq</tt> contained the four
88      *         characters <tt>"null"</tt>.
89      *
90      * @param  start
91      *         The index of the first character in the subsequence
92      *
93      * @param  end
94      *         The index of the character following the last character in the
95      *         subsequence
96      *
97      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
98      *
99      * @throws  IndexOutOfBoundsException
100      *          If <tt>start</tt> or <tt>end</tt> are negative, <tt>start</tt>
101      *          is greater than <tt>end</tt>, or <tt>end</tt> is greater than
102      *          <tt>csq.length()</tt>
103      *
104      * @throws  IOException
105      *          If an I/O error occurs
106      */
append(CharSequence csq, int start, int end)107     Appendable append(CharSequence csq, int start, int end) throws IOException;
108 
109     /**
110      * Appends the specified character to this <tt>Appendable</tt>.
111      *
112      * @param  c
113      *         The character to append
114      *
115      * @return  A reference to this <tt>Appendable</tt>
116      *
117      * @throws  IOException
118      *          If an I/O error occurs
119      */
append(char c)120     Appendable append(char c) throws IOException;
121 }
122