1 /*
2 * ====================================================================
3 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
4 * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
5 * distributed with this work for additional information
6 * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
7 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
8 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
9 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
10 *
11 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
12 *
13 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
14 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
15 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
16 * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
17 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
18 * under the License.
19 * ====================================================================
20 *
21 * This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many
22 * individuals on behalf of the Apache Software Foundation. For more
23 * information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see
24 * <http://www.apache.org/>.
25 *
26 */
27
28 package org.apache.http;
29
30 /**
31 * Represents an HTTP header field.
32 *
33 * <p>The HTTP header fields follow the same generic format as
34 * that given in Section 3.1 of RFC 822. Each header field consists
35 * of a name followed by a colon (":") and the field value. Field names
36 * are case-insensitive. The field value MAY be preceded by any amount
37 * of LWS, though a single SP is preferred.
38 *
39 *<pre>
40 * message-header = field-name ":" [ field-value ]
41 * field-name = token
42 * field-value = *( field-content | LWS )
43 * field-content = <the OCTETs making up the field-value
44 * and consisting of either *TEXT or combinations
45 * of token, separators, and quoted-string>
46 *</pre>
47 *
48 * @since 4.0
49 */
50 public interface Header extends NameValuePair {
51
52 /**
53 * Parses the value.
54 *
55 * @return an array of {@link HeaderElement} entries, may be empty, but is never {@code null}
56 * @throws ParseException in case of a parsing error
57 */
58 HeaderElement[] getElements() throws ParseException;
59
60 }