001 /*
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003 * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007 * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
008 *
009 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010 *
011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015 * limitations under the License.
016 */
017 package org.apache.commons.math;
018
019
020 /**
021 * Interface representing <a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Field.html">field</a> elements.
022 * @param <T> the type of the field elements
023 * @see Field
024 * @version $Revision: 811685 $ $Date: 2009-09-05 13:36:48 -0400 (Sat, 05 Sep 2009) $
025 * @since 2.0
026 */
027 public interface FieldElement<T> {
028
029 /** Compute this + a.
030 * @param a element to add
031 * @return a new element representing this + a
032 */
033 T add(T a);
034
035 /** Compute this - a.
036 * @param a element to subtract
037 * @return a new element representing this - a
038 */
039 T subtract(T a);
040
041 /** Compute this × a.
042 * @param a element to multiply
043 * @return a new element representing this × a
044 */
045 T multiply(T a);
046
047 /** Compute this ÷ a.
048 * @param a element to add
049 * @return a new element representing this ÷ a
050 * @exception ArithmeticException if a is the zero of the
051 * additive operation (i.e. additive identity)
052 */
053 T divide(T a) throws ArithmeticException;
054
055 /** Get the {@link Field} to which the instance belongs.
056 * @return {@link Field} to which the instance belongs
057 */
058 Field<T> getField();
059
060 }