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    1   /*
    2    * Copyright 2003-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
    3    *
    4    * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    5    * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    6    * You may obtain a copy of the License at
    7    *
    8    *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    9    *
    10   * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    11   * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    12   * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    13   * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    14   * limitations under the License.
    15   */
    16
    17  package org.apache.commons.math.random;
    18
    19  import java.io.IOException;
    20  import java.io.File;
    21  import java.net.URL;
    22  import java.util.List;
    23
    24  import org.apache.commons.math.stat.descriptive.StatisticalSummary;
    25
    26  /***
    27   * Represents an <a href="http://random.mat.sbg.ac.at/~ste/dipl/node11.html">
    28   * empirical probability distribution</a> -- a probability distribution derived
    29   * from observed data without making any assumptions about the functional form
    30   * of the population distribution that the data come from.<p>
    31   * Implementations of this interface maintain data structures, called
    32   * <i>distribution digests</i>, that describe empirical distributions and
    33   * support the following operations: <ul>
    34   * <li>loading the distribution from a file of observed data values</li>
    35   * <li>dividing the input data into "bin ranges" and reporting bin frequency
    36   *     counts (data for histogram)</li>
    37   * <li>reporting univariate statistics describing the full set of data values
    38   *     as well as the observations within each bin</li>
    39   * <li>generating random values from the distribution</li>
    40   * </ul>
    41   * Applications can use <code>EmpiricalDistribution</code> implementations to
    42   * build grouped frequnecy histograms representing the input data or to
    43   * generate random values "like" those in the input file -- i.e., the values
    44   * generated will follow the distribution of the values in the file.
    45   *
    46   * @version $Revision: 155427 $ $Date: 2005-02-26 06:11:52 -0700 (Sat, 26 Feb 2005) $
    47   */
    48  public interface EmpiricalDistribution {
    49
    50      /***
    51       * Computes the empirical distribution from the provided
    52       * array of numbers.
    53       *
    54       * @param dataArray the data array
    55       */
    56      void load(double[] dataArray);
    57
    58      /***
    59       * Computes the empirical distribution from the input file.
    60       *
    61       * @param file the input file
    62       * @throws IOException if an IO error occurs
    63       */
    64      void load(File file) throws IOException;
    65
    66      /***
    67       * Computes the empirical distribution using data read from a URL.
    68       *
    69       * @param url url of the input file
    70       * @throws IOException if an IO error occurs
    71       */
    72      void load(URL url) throws IOException;
    73
    74      /***
    75       * Generates a random value from this distribution.
    76       * <strong>Preconditions:</strong><ul>
    77       * <li>the distribution must be loaded before invoking this method</li></ul>
    78       * @return the random value.
    79       *
    80       * @throws IllegalStateException if the distribution has not been loaded
    81       */
    82      double getNextValue() throws IllegalStateException;
    83
    84
    85      /***
    86       * Returns a
    87       * {@link org.apache.commons.math.stat.descriptive.StatisticalSummary}
    88       * describing this distribution.
    89       * <strong>Preconditions:</strong><ul>
    90       * <li>the distribution must be loaded before invoking this method</li>
    91       * </ul>
    92       *
    93       * @return the sample statistics
    94       * @throws IllegalStateException if the distribution has not been loaded
    95       */
    96      StatisticalSummary getSampleStats() throws IllegalStateException;
    97
    98      /***
    99       * Property indicating whether or not the distribution has been loaded.
    100      *
    101      * @return true if the distribution has been loaded
    102      */
    103     boolean isLoaded();
    104
    105      /***
    106      * Returns the number of bins.
    107      *
    108      * @return the number of bins
    109      */
    110     int getBinCount();
    111
    112     /***
    113      * Returns a list of
    114      * {@link org.apache.commons.math.stat.descriptive.SummaryStatistics}
    115      * containing statistics describing the values in each of the bins.  The
    116      * List is indexed on the bin number.
    117      *
    118      * @return List of bin statistics
    119      */
    120     List getBinStats();
    121
    122     /***
    123      * Returns the array of upper bounds for the bins.  Bins are: <br/>
    124      * [min,upperBounds[0]],(upperBounds[0],upperBounds[1]],...,
    125      *  (upperBounds[binCount-1],max].
    126      *
    127      * @return array of bin upper bounds
    128      */
    129     double[] getUpperBounds();
    130
    131 }