org.protempa.backend.dsb.filter

Interface Filter

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractFilter, DateTimeFilter, PositionFilter, PropertyValueFilter, ValueFilter

public interface Filter

Specifies a filter on what propositions to return from a data source. Filters may be chained together with boolean 'and'. Each filter type must be matched in data source backends by corresponding code to translate them into data source query code.

Author:

Andrew Post

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	accept(FilterVisitor visitor) Performs some processing on this filter.
Iterator<Filter>	andIterator() Returns an iterator over this filter and all subsequent filters in the chain.
Filter[]	filterChainToArray() Return an array that contains all of the filters in the chain.
Filter	getAnd() Returns the next filter in the chain, if specified.
String[]	getPropositionIds() Returns the proposition ids for which this filter is valid.

Method Detail

getPropositionIds

String[] getPropositionIds()

Returns the proposition ids for which this filter is valid. Implementors of this class are not required to validate supplied proposition ids to ensure that they are all supplied by a data source directly (i.e., not derived), thus it could potentially return the ids of derived propositions.

Returns:

a proposition id String[]. Is guaranteed not to return null, an empty array or an array containing null values.

getAnd

Filter getAnd()

Returns the next filter in the chain, if specified.

Returns:

a Filter, or null if there are no more filters in the chain.

accept

void accept(FilterVisitor visitor)

Performs some processing on this filter.

Parameters:

visitor - a FilterVisitor. Cannot be null.

andIterator

Iterator<Filter> andIterator()

Returns an iterator over this filter and all subsequent filters in the chain.

Returns:

an Iterator.

filterChainToArray

Filter[] filterChainToArray()

Return an array that contains all of the filters in the chain.