/*
* File: Categorizer.java
* Authors: Justin Basilico
* Company: Sandia National Laboratories
* Project: Cognitive Foundry
*
* Copyright July 18, 2007, Sandia Corporation. Under the terms of Contract
* DE-AC04-94AL85000, there is a non-exclusive license for use of this work by
* or on behalf of the U.S. Government. Export of this program may require a
* license from the United States Government. See CopyrightHistory.txt for
* complete details.
*
*/
package gov.sandia.cognition.learning.function.categorization;
import gov.sandia.cognition.evaluator.Evaluator;
import gov.sandia.cognition.util.CloneableSerializable;
import java.util.Set;
/**
* The <code>Categorizer</code> interface defines the functionality of an
* object that can take an input and evaluate what category out of a fixed
* set of categories it belongs to. The categories are represented as values
* of type CategoryType.
* <BR><BR>
* The term "categorizer" is used here instead of synonymous "classifier" for
* two reasons:
* <BR>
* <BR> 1) Java uses the term "class" itself to mean something different.
* <BR> 2) At Sandia "classified" has yet another meaning.
* <BR><BR>
* Thus we use "categorizer" because using other words from the same stem is
* does not have these problems: "category", "categorized", "categorization",
* etc.
*
* @param <InputType> The type of the input the categorizer can use.
* @param <CategoryType> The type of category output by the categorizer.
* @author Justin Basilico
* @since 2.0
*/
public interface Categorizer<InputType, CategoryType>
extends Evaluator<InputType, CategoryType>,
CloneableSerializable
{
/**
* Gets the list of possible categories that the categorizer can produce.
*
* @return The list of possible categories.
*/
Set<? extends CategoryType> getCategories();
}