/*

   Derby - Class org.apache.derby.iapi.jdbc.EngineLOB

   Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
   contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
   this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
   The ASF licenses this file to you 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 org.apache.derby.iapi.jdbc;

import java.sql.SQLException;

/**
 * Additional methods the embedded engine exposes on all of its large object
 * (LOB) implementations.
 * 

 * An internal API only, mainly for the network server.
 * 

 * Implementation note: If a new method is needed, that only applies to
 * one specific large object type (for instance a Blob), one should consider
 * creating a new interface that extends from this one.
 */
public interface EngineLOB {

    /**
     * Returns LOB locator key.
     * 

     * The key can be used with
     * {@link org.apache.derby.impl.jdbc.EmbedConnection#getLOBMapping} to
     * retrieve this LOB at a later time.
     *
     * @return Locator key for this LOB
     */
    public int getLocator();

    /**
     * Frees all resources assoicated with this LOB.
     *
     * @throws SQLException if an error occurs during cleanup
     */
    public void free() throws SQLException;
}