/**
 *   
 *   AgentAcademy - an open source Data Mining framework for
 *   training intelligent agents
 *
 *   Copyright (C)   2001-2003 AA Consortium.
 *
 *   This library is open source software; you can redistribute it 
 *   and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General 
 *   Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;   
 *   either version 2.0 of the License, or (at your option) any later 
 *   version.
 *
 *   This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the    
 *   GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 *   You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 *   License along with this library; if not, write to the Free 
 *   Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, 
 *   MA  02111-1307 USA
 * 
 */

package org.agentacademy.modules.dataminer.attributeSelection;


/** 
 * Interface for search methods capable of doing something sensible
 * given a starting set of attributes.
 *
 * @author Mark Hall (mhall@cs.waikato.ac.nz)
 * @version $Revision: 1.2 $
 */
public interface StartSetHandler {

  /**
   * Sets a starting set of attributes for the search. It is the
   * search method's responsibility to report this start set (if any)
   * in its toString() method.
   * @param startSet a string containing a list of attributes (and or ranges),
   * eg. 1,2,6,10-15.
   * @exception Exception if start set can't be set.
   */
  void setStartSet (String startSet) throws Exception;

  /**
   * Returns a list of attributes (and or attribute ranges) as a String
   * @return a list of attributes (and or attribute ranges)
   */
  String getStartSet ();
}