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 */
17package 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 */
27public interface FieldElement<T> {
28
29    /** Compute this + a.
30     * @param a element to add
31     * @return a new element representing this + a
32     */
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     */
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     */
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     */
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     */
58    Field<T> getField();
59
60}
61