This is an interface to adapt existing APIs to use ByteBuffers as the underlying data format. Only the initial producer and final consumer have to be changed.

For example, the Zip/Jar code supports InputStreams. To make the Zip code use MappedByteBuffers as the underlying data structure, it can create a class of InputStream that wraps the ByteBuffer, and implements the ByteBuffered interface. A co-operating class several layers away can ask the InputStream if it is an instance of ByteBuffered, then call the getByteBuffer() method.