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diff --git a/src/org/apache/commons/codec/Decoder.java b/src/org/apache/commons/codec/Decoder.java
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+/*
+ * Copyright 2001-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
+ * 
+ * Licensed 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.codec;
+
+/**
+ * <p>Provides the highest level of abstraction for Decoders.
+ * This is the sister interface of {@link Encoder}.  All
+ * Decoders implement this common generic interface.</p>
+ * 
+ * <p>Allows a user to pass a generic Object to any Decoder 
+ * implementation in the codec package.</p>
+ * 
+ * <p>One of the two interfaces at the center of the codec package.</p>
+ * 
+ * @author Apache Software Foundation
+ * @version $Id: Decoder.java,v 1.9 2004/02/29 04:08:31 tobrien Exp $
+ */
+public interface Decoder {
+
+    /**
+     * Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded"
+     * Object.  Note that the implementation of this
+     * interface will try to cast the Object parameter
+     * to the specific type expected by a particular Decoder
+     * implementation.  If a {@link java.lang.ClassCastException} occurs
+     * this decode method will throw a DecoderException.
+     * 
+     * @param pObject an object to "decode"
+     * 
+     * @return a 'decoded" object
+     * 
+     * @throws DecoderException a decoder exception can
+     * be thrown for any number of reasons.  Some good
+     * candidates are that the parameter passed to this
+     * method is null, a param cannot be cast to the
+     * appropriate type for a specific encoder.
+     */
+    Object decode(Object pObject) throws DecoderException;
+}  
+