+/*
+ * Copyright (c) 2017 Pantheon Technologies, s.r.o. and others. All rights reserved.
+ *
+ * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
+ * terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 which accompanies this distribution,
+ * and is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
+ */
+package org.opendaylight.yangtools.yang.data.util.codec;
+
+import com.google.common.annotations.Beta;
+
+/**
+ * A codec, which knows what the native representation for a particular data type is. It knows how to convert a native
+ * value to and from string representation based on some additional input or output context.
+ *
+ * @author Robert Varga
+ *
+ * @param <T> Data value type
+ * @param <I> Input context type
+ * @param <O> Output context type
+ */
+@Beta
+public interface TypeAwareCodec<T, I, O> {
+ /**
+ * Return the data type class.
+ *
+ * @return Data type class
+ */
+ Class<T> getDataType();
+
+ /**
+ * Parse a String representation into its native format.
+ *
+ * @param ctx Parse context
+ * @param str String representation
+ * @return Value in native format
+ * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the value does not parse or pass type validation
+ */
+ T parseValue(I ctx, String str);
+
+ /**
+ * Serialize specified value with specified JsonWriter.
+ *
+ * @param ctx Write context
+ * @param value Value in native format
+ * @throws Exception if the write fails
+ */
+ void writeValue(O ctx, T value) throws Exception;
+}