1 package net.obsearch.pivots;
2
3 import net.obsearch.OB;
4 import net.obsearch.exception.OBException;
5
6
7 /*
8 OBSearch: a distributed similarity search engine
9 This project is to similarity search what 'bit-torrent' is to downloads.
10 Copyright (C) 2007 Arnoldo Jose Muller Molina
11
12 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
13 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
14 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
15 (at your option) any later version.
16
17 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
18 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
19 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
20 GNU General Public License for more details.
21
22 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
23 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
24 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
25 */
26 /**
27 * This interface is used by some pivot selectors to determine if
28 * a given object can be used as a pivot. There can be distance functions
29 * for which some objects are more expensive to compute than others.
30 * For example, trees. The bigger the tree is, the more expensive
31 * it is to compute its distance.
32 * @param <O>
33 * Type of object of the index to be analyzed.
34 * @author Arnoldo Jose Muller Molina
35 * @since 0.8
36 */
37 public interface Pivotable <O extends OB> {
38
39 /**
40 * Returns true if the given object can be used as a pivot.
41 * @param object
42 * @return true if the object should be used as a pivot
43 * @throws OBException If something goes wrong
44 */
45 boolean canBeUsedAsPivot(O object) throws OBException;
46
47 }