001/* 002 * ==================================================================== 003 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one 004 * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file 005 * distributed with this work for additional information 006 * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file 007 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the 008 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance 009 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at 010 * 011 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 012 * 013 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, 014 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an 015 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY 016 * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the 017 * specific language governing permissions and limitations 018 * under the License. 019 * ==================================================================== 020 * 021 * This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many 022 * individuals on behalf of the Apache Software Foundation. For more 023 * information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see 024 * <http://www.apache.org/>. 025 * 026 */ 027 028package org.apache.http; 029 030/** 031 * Represents an HTTP header field. 032 * 033 * <p>The HTTP header fields follow the same generic format as 034 * that given in Section 3.1 of RFC 822. Each header field consists 035 * of a name followed by a colon (":") and the field value. Field names 036 * are case-insensitive. The field value MAY be preceded by any amount 037 * of LWS, though a single SP is preferred. 038 * 039 *<pre> 040 * message-header = field-name ":" [ field-value ] 041 * field-name = token 042 * field-value = *( field-content | LWS ) 043 * field-content = <the OCTETs making up the field-value 044 * and consisting of either *TEXT or combinations 045 * of token, separators, and quoted-string> 046 *</pre> 047 * 048 * @since 4.0 049 */ 050public interface Header { 051 052 /** 053 * Get the name of the Header. 054 * 055 * @return the name of the Header, never {@code null} 056 */ 057 String getName(); 058 059 /** 060 * Get the value of the Header. 061 * 062 * @return the value of the Header, may be {@code null} 063 */ 064 String getValue(); 065 066 /** 067 * Parses the value. 068 * 069 * @return an array of {@link HeaderElement} entries, may be empty, but is never {@code null} 070 * @throws ParseException in case of a parsing error 071 */ 072 HeaderElement[] getElements() throws ParseException; 073 074}