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 19:36:48 +0200 (sam. 05 sept. 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 &times; a.
042         * @param a element to multiply
043         * @return a new element representing this &times; a
044         */
045        T multiply(T a);
046    
047        /** Compute this &divide; a.
048         * @param a element to add
049         * @return a new element representing this &divide; 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    }