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      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      */
     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