// Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
// Copyright 2008 Google Inc.  All rights reserved.
// https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/
//
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// modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
// met:
//
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// notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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// in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
// distribution.
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package com.google.protobuf;

import java.util.List;

/**
 * An interface extending {@code List<String>} used for repeated string fields
 * to provide optional access to the data as a list of ByteStrings. The
 * underlying implementation stores values as either ByteStrings or Strings
 * (see {@link LazyStringArrayList}) depending on how the value was initialized
 * or last read, and it is often more efficient to deal with lists of
 * ByteStrings when handling protos that have been deserialized from bytes.
 */
public interface ProtocolStringList extends List<String> {

  /** Returns a view of the data as a list of ByteStrings. */
  List<ByteString> asByteStringList();

}
