code: /*
   * Copyright (C) 2008 Google Inc.
   *
   * Licensed 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.
   */
  
  package tools.com.google.gson;
  
  import java.lang.reflect.Type;
  
  /**
   * Context for serialization that is passed to a custom serializer during invocation of its
   * {@link JsonSerializer#serialize(Object, Type, JsonSerializationContext)} method.
   *
   * @author Inderjeet Singh
   * @author Joel Leitch
   */
  public interface JsonSerializationContext {
  
    /**
     * Invokes default serialization on the specified object.
     *
     * @param src the object that needs to be serialized.
     * @return a tree of {@link JsonElement}s corresponding to the serialized form of {@code src}.
     */
    public JsonElement serialize(Object src);
  
    /**
     * Invokes default serialization on the specified object passing the specific type information.
     * It should never be invoked on the element received as a parameter of the
     * {@link JsonSerializer#serialize(Object, Type, JsonSerializationContext)} method. Doing
     * so will result in an infinite loop since Gson will in-turn call the custom serializer again.
     *
     * @param src the object that needs to be serialized.
     * @param typeOfSrc the actual genericized type of src object.
     * @return a tree of {@link JsonElement}s corresponding to the serialized form of {@code src}.
     */
    public JsonElement serialize(Object src, Type typeOfSrc);
  }
  