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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: 799857 $ $Date: 2009-08-01 09:07:12 -0400 (Sat, 01 Aug 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  }