/*
 *  RapidMiner
 *
 *  Copyright (C) 2001-2008 by Rapid-I and the contributors
 *
 *  Complete list of developers available at our web site:
 *
 *       http://rapid-i.com
 *
 *  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *  it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
 *  the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 *  (at your option) any later version.
 *
 *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *  GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
 *
 *  You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
 *  along with this program.  If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
 */
package com.rapidminer.example.set;

import java.io.Serializable;

import com.rapidminer.example.Example;
import com.rapidminer.example.ExampleSet;


/**
 * Objects implementing this interface are used by
 * {@link com.rapidminer.example.set.ConditionedExampleSet}s, a special sub class of
 * {@link com.rapidminer.example.ExampleSet} that skips all examples that do not fulfill this
 * condition. In order for the
 * {@link com.rapidminer.example.set.ConditionedExampleSet#createCondition(String, ExampleSet, String)}
 * factory method to be able to create instances of an implementation of
 * Condition, it must implement a two argument constructor taking an
 * {@link ExampleSet} and a parameter String. The meaning of the parameter
 * string is dependent on the implementation and may even be ignored, although
 * it would be nice to print a warning.
 * 
 * @author Ingo Mierswa, Simon Fischer
 * @version $Id: Condition.java,v 1.5 2008/05/09 19:22:49 ingomierswa Exp $
 */
public interface Condition extends Serializable {

	/** Should return true if the given example does fulfill this condition. */
	public boolean conditionOk(Example example);

	/**
	 * Returns a duplicate of this condition. Subclasses which cannot
	 * dynamically changed can also return the same object.
	 * 
	 * @deprecated Conditions should not be able to be changed dynamically and hence there is no need for a copy
	 */
	@Deprecated
	public Condition duplicate();
    
}