MultivariateFunction.java

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.apache.commons.math3.analysis;

/**
 * An interface representing a multivariate real function.
 *
 * @since 2.0
 */
public interface MultivariateFunction {

    /**
     * Compute the value for the function at the given point.
     *
     * @param point Point at which the function must be evaluated.
     * @return the function value for the given point.
     * @throws org.apache.commons.math3.exception.DimensionMismatchException
     * if the parameter's dimension is wrong for the function being evaluated.
     * @throws  org.apache.commons.math3.exception.MathIllegalArgumentException
     * when the activated method itself can ascertain that preconditions,
     * specified in the API expressed at the level of the activated method,
     * have been violated.  In the vast majority of cases where Commons Math
     * throws this exception, it is the result of argument checking of actual
     * parameters immediately passed to a method.
     */
    double value(double[] point);
}