001/* MultiDoc.java --
002   Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
003
004This file is part of GNU Classpath.
005
006GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
007it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
008the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
009any later version.
010
011GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
012WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
014General Public License for more details.
015
016You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
017along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
018Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
01902110-1301 USA.
020
021Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
022making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
023conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
024combination.
025
026As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
027permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
028executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
029modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
030terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
031independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
032module.  An independent module is a module which is not derived from
033or based on this library.  If you modify this library, you may extend
034this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
035obligated to do so.  If you do not wish to do so, delete this
036exception statement from your version. */
037
038
039package javax.print;
040
041import java.io.IOException;
042
043
044/**
045 * <code>MultiDoc</code> defines the interface for objects providing multiple
046 * documents for use in a print job.
047 * <p>
048 * Implementations of this interface are used to pass multiple documents, to be
049 * printed as one print job, to the <code>MultiDocPrintJob</code> instance.
050 * </p><p>
051 * There exists no implementation of this interface in the Java Print Service
052 * API. Implementors may assume the following usage in print jobs and the needed
053 * behaviour for implementations: The print job fetches the single documents via
054 * iteration by consecutive calls of the {@link #getDoc()} method to obtain the
055 * current document follwing calls of the {@link #next()} method to get the next
056 * multidoc object for the next <code>getDoc()</code> method call (if returned
057 * multidoc object is not <code>null</code>). The print service will fetch the
058 * document object and then retrieve the print data from the document before it
059 * proceeds with the next call for the next MultiDoc object in the sequence.
060 * </p><p>
061 * Implementations of this interface have to be multiple thread-safe.
062 * </p>
063 *
064 * @author Michael Koch (konqueror@gmx.de)
065 */
066public interface MultiDoc
067{
068  /**
069   * Returns the current document.
070   *
071   * @return The current document.
072   *
073   * @throws IOException if an error occurs
074   */
075  Doc getDoc() throws IOException;
076
077  /**
078   * Returns the next <code>MultiDoc</code> object that contains the
079   * next document for retrieval.
080   *
081   * @return The next <code>MultiDoc</code> object, or <code>null</code>
082   * if no more documents are available.
083   *
084   * @throws IOException if an error occurs
085   */
086  MultiDoc next() throws IOException;
087}