/* * BioJava development code * * This code may be freely distributed and modified under the * terms of the GNU Lesser General Public Licence. This should * be distributed with the code. If you do not have a copy, * see: * * http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html * * Copyright for this code is held jointly by the individual * authors. These should be listed in @author doc comments. * * For more information on the BioJava project and its aims, * or to join the biojava-l mailing list, visit the home page * at: * * http://www.biojava.org/ * */ package org.biojava.bio.search; import org.biojava.bio.symbol.SymbolList; /** * Interface for things that perform matches. * *
* These will almost always be produced by a factory method on a BioPattern * object. *
* * @author Matthew Pocock */ public interface BioMatcher { /** * Attempt to find the next match. * ** If the pattern can be found, then this will return true. If it could not, * then it will return false. This is convenient within for or while loops. *
* ** Each time this is called, the next match will be found. The start() and * end() values will increase each time, regardless of wether you called any * other methods. *
* * @return true if there is another match */ boolean find(); /** * Get the first symbol index that matches the pattern. * * @return the start of the current match * @throws java.lang.IllegalStateException if there is no current match */ int start(); /** * Get the last symbol index that matches the pattern. * * @return the end of the current match * @throws java.lang.IllegalStateException if there is no current match */ int end(); /** * Get the matching region as a SymbolList. * * @return the matching symbols * @throws java.lang.IllegalStateException if there is no current match */ SymbolList group(); }