/*

  *   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 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 General Public License for more details.

  *

  *   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

  *   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

  */

 /*

  *    AssociationRulesProducer.java

  *    Copyright (C) 2010-2012 University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

  *

  */

 package weka.associations;

 /**

  * Interface to something that can provide a list of

  * AssociationRules.

  * 

  * @author Mark Hall (mhall{[at]}pentaho{[dot]}com)

  * @version $Revision: 8034 $

  */

 public interface AssociationRulesProducer {

   /**

    * Gets the list of mined association rules.

    * 

    * @return the list of association rules discovered during mining.

    * Returns null if mining hasn't been performed yet.

    */

   AssociationRules getAssociationRules();

   /**

    * Gets a list of the names of the metrics output for

    * each rule. This list should be the same (in terms of

    * the names and order thereof) as that produced by

    * AssociationRule.getMetricNamesForRule().

    * 

    * @return an array of the names of the metrics available

    * for each rule learned by this producer.

    */

   String[] getRuleMetricNames();

   /**

    * Returns true if this AssociationRulesProducer can actually

    * produce rules. Most implementing classes will always return

    * true from this method (obviously :-)). However, an implementing

    * class that actually acts as a wrapper around things that may

    * or may not implement AssociationRulesProducer will want to

    * return false if the thing they wrap can't produce rules.

    * 

    * @return true if this producer can produce rules in its current

    * configuration

    */

   boolean canProduceRules();

 }