1 /*
2  * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
3  * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
4  * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
5  * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
6  * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
7  * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
8  *
9  *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
10  *
11  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
12  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
13  * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
14  * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
15  * limitations under the License.
16  */
17 package org.apache.commons.math;
18 
19 
20 /**
21  * Interface representing <a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Field.html">field</a> elements.
22  * @param <T> the type of the field elements
23  * @see Field
24  * @version $Revision: 811685 $ $Date: 2009-09-05 19:36:48 +0200 (sam. 05 sept. 2009) $
25  * @since 2.0
26  */
27 public interface FieldElement<T> {
28 
29     /** Compute this + a.
30      * @param a element to add
31      * @return a new element representing this + a
32      */
add(T a)33     T add(T a);
34 
35     /** Compute this - a.
36      * @param a element to subtract
37      * @return a new element representing this - a
38      */
subtract(T a)39     T subtract(T a);
40 
41     /** Compute this &times; a.
42      * @param a element to multiply
43      * @return a new element representing this &times; a
44      */
multiply(T a)45     T multiply(T a);
46 
47     /** Compute this &divide; a.
48      * @param a element to add
49      * @return a new element representing this &divide; a
50      * @exception ArithmeticException if a is the zero of the
51      * additive operation (i.e. additive identity)
52      */
divide(T a)53     T divide(T a) throws ArithmeticException;
54 
55     /** Get the {@link Field} to which the instance belongs.
56      * @return {@link Field} to which the instance belongs
57      */
getField()58     Field<T> getField();
59 
60 }
61