/*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 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 General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*/
/*
* AttributeTransformer.java
* Copyright (C) 2000 Mark Hall
*
*/
package weka.attributeSelection;
import java.io.*;
import weka.core.*;
/**
* Abstract attribute transformer. Transforms the dataset.
*
* @author Mark Hall (mhall@cs.waikato.ac.nz)
* @version $Revision: 1.1.1.1 $
*/
public interface AttributeTransformer {
// ===============
// Public methods.
// ===============
/**
* Returns just the header for the transformed data (ie. an empty
* set of instances. This is so that AttributeSelection can
* determine the structure of the transformed data without actually
* having to get all the transformed data through getTransformedData().
* @return the header of the transformed data.
* @exception Exception if the header of the transformed data can't
* be determined.
*/
Instances transformedHeader() throws Exception;
/**
* Returns the transformed data
* @return A set of instances representing the transformed data
* @exception Exception if the attribute could not be evaluated
*/
Instances transformedData() throws Exception;
/**
* Transforms an instance in the format of the original data to the
* transformed space
* @return a transformed instance
* @exception Exception if the instance could not be transformed
*/
Instance convertInstance(Instance instance) throws Exception;
}