/*
 *  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.tools.math.distribution;

import com.rapidminer.tools.Tools;

/**
 * The distribution for a continous variable.
 * 
 * @author Tobias Malbrecht
 * @version $Id: ContinuousDistribution.java,v 1.4 2008/07/31 17:43:41 ingomierswa Exp $
 */
public abstract class ContinuousDistribution implements Distribution {

	/**
	 * 
	 */
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 6775492269986383673L;

	public final boolean isDiscrete() {
		return false;
	}
	
	public final boolean isContinuous() {
		return true;
	}
	
	public abstract double getProbability(double x);

	/**
	 * This method returns a lower bound of values. This bound
	 * should be given by the distributions tail, for example bounds
	 * should contain 95% interval. Nominal distributions should
	 * return NaN.
	 */
	public abstract double getLowerBound();
	
	/** 
	 * This method returns an upper bound of possible values. This
	 * bound should be given by the distributions tail, for example
	 * bounds should contain 95% interval. Nominal distributions
	 * should return NaN.
	 */
	public abstract double getUpperBound();

	public String mapValue(double value) {
		return Tools.formatNumber(value);
	}
}