/*

 * 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.commons.collections4;

import java.util.Map;

/**

 * The "write" subset of the {@link Map} interface.

 * <p>

 * NOTE: in the original {@link Map} interface, {@link Map#put(Object, Object)} is known

 * to have the same return type as {@link Map#get(Object)}, namely {@code V}. {@link Put}

 * makes no assumptions in this regard (there is no association with, nor even knowledge

 * of, a "reading" interface) and thus defines {@link #put(Object, Object)} as returning

 * {@link Object}.

 * </p>

 *

 * @param <K> the type of the keys in this map

 * @param <V> the type of the values in this map

 *

 * @since 4.0

 * @see Get

 */

public interface Put<K, V> {

    /**

     * @see Map#clear()

     */

    void clear();

    /**

     * Note that the return type is Object, rather than V as in the Map interface.

     * See the class Javadoc for further info.

     *

     * @param key key with which the specified value is to be associated

     * @param value value to be associated with the specified key

     * @return the previous value associated with <code>key</code>, or

     *         <code>null</code> if there was no mapping for <code>key</code>.

     *         (A <code>null</code> return can also indicate that the map

     *         previously associated <code>null</code> with <code>key</code>,

     *         if the implementation supports <code>null</code> values.)

     * @see Map#put(Object, Object)

     */

    Object put(K key, V value);

    /**

     * @param t mappings to be stored in this map

     * @see Map#putAll(Map)

     */

    void putAll(Map<? extends K, ? extends V> t);

}