Package org.biojava.bio.program.formats

Class FormatTools

java.lang.Object

org.biojava.bio.program.formats.FormatTools

public class FormatTools
extends Object

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field	Description
static ChangeTable.Changer	EC_FROM_STRING

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
static Format	getFormat(String formatName)	Attempt to find aformat for a format identifer string.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Field Detail

EC_FROM_STRING

public static final ChangeTable.Changer EC_FROM_STRING

Method Detail

getFormat

public static Format getFormat(String formatName)
                        throws BioException

Attempt to find aformat for a format identifer string.

The string will be resolved in the following way:

1. Treat the name as an LSID and search for a format class with that LSID.
2. Load a class of that name
3. Load a class in the package org.biojava.bio.program.formats with that name
4. Load a class in that package after replacing each '.' in the name with "$" so that a search is made of inner classes.

It is not specified if the format returned is a new instance or not.

This method uses the service providor framework to find format providers. If you add formats to the core biojava distribution, you must add the class name to the file biojava-live/resources/META-INF/services/org.biojava.bio.program.formats.Format/ If you implement formats and place them in your own .jar files, you should put the class name in a similarly named file in your jar. This should mean that the format becomes automatically registered with the system.

Parameters:

formatName - the Stirng to use to find the format name

Returns:

a Format for that name

Throws:

BioException - if the format could not be resolved for some reason