001    /* MultiDoc.java --
002       Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
003    
004    This file is part of GNU Classpath.
005    
006    GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
007    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
008    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
009    any later version.
010    
011    GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
012    WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
014    General Public License for more details.
015    
016    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
017    along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
018    Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
019    02110-1301 USA.
020    
021    Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
022    making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
023    conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
024    combination.
025    
026    As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
027    permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
028    executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
029    modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
030    terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
031    independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
032    module.  An independent module is a module which is not derived from
033    or based on this library.  If you modify this library, you may extend
034    this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
035    obligated to do so.  If you do not wish to do so, delete this
036    exception statement from your version. */
037    
038    
039    package javax.print;
040    
041    import 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     */
066    public 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    }