/*
 * 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.onlab.packet;

/**
 *
 */
public interface IPacket {
    /**
     *
     * @return the payload
     */
    public IPacket getPayload();

    /**
     *
     * @param packet new payload
     * @return self
     */
    public IPacket setPayload(IPacket packet);

    /**
     *
     * @return parent packet
     */
    public IPacket getParent();

    /**
     *
     * @param packet new parent
     * @return self
     */
    public IPacket setParent(IPacket packet);

    /**
     * Reset any checksums as needed, and call resetChecksum on all parents.
     */
    public void resetChecksum();

    /**
     * Sets all payloads parent packet if applicable, then serializes this
     * packet and all payloads.
     *
     * @return a byte[] containing this packet and payloads
     */
    public byte[] serialize();

    /**
     * Deserializes this packet layer and all possible payloads.
     *
     * @param data
     * @param offset
     *            offset to start deserializing from
     * @param length
     *            length of the data to deserialize
     * @return the deserialized data
     */
    public IPacket deserialize(byte[] data, int offset, int length);

    /**
     * Clone this packet and its payload packet but not its parent.
     *
     * @return the clone
     */
    public Object clone();
}