NORSYS SOFTWARE © 2012

NETICA API

JAVA VERSION 5.04

norsys.netica
Class General

java.lang.Object
  |
  +--norsys.netica.General

All Implemented Interfaces:

NeticaListener

Direct Known Subclasses:

Net, Node, State

public abstract class General

extends java.lang.Object

implements NeticaListener

A class that provides generic useful documentation and utility information regarding a Netica object.

Currently only Net, Node, and int extend this class, but other classes may do so in future.

There is no public constructor for the General class; obtain a General object by constructing a Node or Net or by calling Node.state

A General object contains accessors and mutators for the following data:

name		A size-restricted and character restricted name for the object. Must contain only ascii letters, digits, or underscores, start with a letter, and be of 30 characters or less in length.
title		An unrestricted name for the object. May be any length of arbitrary Unicode, but recommended that it not be very long (the comment field is available for that).
comment		An unrestricted comment text block (any length of arbitrary Unicode), but semantically meant to describe or give detailed documentation concerning the object in question.
user fields		A set of key-value pairs (attribute-value pairs), where the keys are strings and the values may be of a variety of types. These WILL be saved when the General object is written to a file or stream. All userFields are placed in the User object owned by this General. Access them by calling user()user. For example: node.user().setString ("extraInfo", "This is some extra information.");
user reference		A single arbitrary object (but can be absolutely anything, including a Collection) that will NOT be saved when this General object is written to a file or stream, or duplicated when this General object is duplicated. The userReference resides in the User object owned by this General. Access it by calling user()user. For example: node.user().setReference (myCollection);

Note. Currently States only have the name, title, and comment methods. This restriction will be removed in a future release of Netica.

Since:

2.12

Version:

5.04 - January 21, 2012 In versions previous to 2.20, this class was named Doc.

Field Summary

static int

NAME_MAX The maximum number of characters in the name of a General Netica object (e.g., Node, Net, State).

Constructor Summary

General()

Method Summary

void	addListener(NeticaListener listener) Adds the given listener to this object's list of listeners.
void	eventOccurred(NeticaEvent event) Netica calls back this method when an event occurred to an object we expressed interest in (by calling addListener).
java.lang.String	getComment() Gets the documentation text concerning this object.
Environ	getEnviron() Returns the Environ this object belong's to.
java.lang.String	getLabel()
java.lang.String	getLabel(java.lang.String options)
java.lang.String	getName() Returns the identifer name of this object.
java.lang.String	getTitle() Gets the unrestricted label of this object.
void	removeListener(NeticaListener listener) Removes the given listener from this object's list of listeners.
void	setComment(java.lang.String comment) Sets the documentation or a description of an object.
void	setName(java.lang.String name) Changes the name of this object to be name.
void	setTitle(java.lang.String title) Sets the title of this object to the unrestricted string title.
java.lang.String	toString() Returns the value of getName.
User	user() Retrieve the User object that stores user controlled data associated with this object.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait

Field Detail

public static final int NAME_MAX

The maximum number of characters in the name of a General Netica object (e.g., Node, Net, State). Currently it is 30, and not likely to change.

Constructor Detail

public General ( ) throws NeticaException

Method Detail

public void addListener (

NeticaListener

listener

) throws NeticaException

Adds the given listener to this object's list of listeners. If any significant event occurs to this object(e.g., REMOVE_EVENT), Netica will inform each such listener.

Currently only Net and Node objects accept listeners.

Parameters:

NeticaListener

listener

The object to be informed.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named AddNetListener_bn and AddNodeListener_bn.

See Also:

removeListener		Removes a listener from the listener list
eventOccurred		Receives the event

Example:

The following complete program illustrates how any java object, if it chooses to implement the NeticaListener interface, can listen to NeticaEvents:
 /* 
  * SampleListener.java
  *
  * Example use of NeticaListener interface to listen to NeticaEvents on objects.
  *
  * Copyright (c) 2002 by Norsys Software Corp.
  */
 
 import norsys.netica.*;
 
 public class SampleListener implements NeticaListener {
 
     public static void main (String[] arg) {
         SampleListener sa = new SampleListener();
         sa.run();
     }
 
     public void run() {
         try {
             Environ env = new Environ (null);
             Net net = new Net();
             net.setName("testNet");
             Node node1 = new Node ("node1", 0, net);
             Node node2 = new Node ("node2", 0, net);
             Node node3 = new Node ("node3", 0, net);
             Node node4 = new Node ("node4", 0, net);
 
             node1.addListener (this);
             node2.addListener (this);
             node3.addListener (this);
             // note, we aren't listening to node4
             net.addListener (this);
 	    
             System.out.println("----------- A");
             node2.delete();
             System.out.println("----------- B");
             net.finalize();
             System.out.println("----------- C");
     }
 	 catch (Exception e) {
 	     e.printStackTrace();
 	 }
 }
 
     public void eventOccurred(NeticaEvent ne) {
         if (ne.getKind() == NeticaEvent.REMOVE_EVENT) {
             System.out.print ("The following object has been removed from Netica: ");
             Object obj = ne.getObject(); // the object generating the event
             if (obj instanceof Node) {
                 System.out.print ("(Node): ");
             }
             else if (obj instanceof Net) {
                 System.out.print (" (Net): ");
             }
             System.out.println (obj);
         }
     }
 }
 
 
When run, the above program prints the following:
 
 ----------- A
 The following object has been removed from Netica: (Node): node2
 ----------- B
 The following object has been removed from Netica: (Node): node1
 The following object has been removed from Netica: (Node): node3
 The following object has been removed from Netica:  (Net): testNet
 ----------- C
 

public void eventOccurred (

NeticaEvent

event

)

Netica calls back this method when an event occurred to an object we expressed interest in (by calling addListener). Meets the requirement of the NeticaListener interface.

If you override this method, be sure to call the base class method (super.eventOccurred();).

Parameters:

NeticaEvent

event

An object providing information about the event that occurred.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.

See Also:

addListener

Indicates an object wants to receive events

Example:

See addListener

Specified by:

eventOccurred in interface NeticaListener

public String getComment ( ) throws NeticaException

Gets the documentation text concerning this object. Returns the comment associated with this object, or the empty string (rather than null) if this object does not have a comment.

The comment may contain anything, but see setComment for what it's meant to contain.

There is no restriction on the length of the comment, or on what characters it might contain.

Note. Currently State's do not have comment fields, and so an exception is thrown if you attempt to call this method on a State object.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named GetNetComment_bn and GetNodeComment_bn, and GetNodeStateComment_bn.

See Also:

setComment

Sets it

public Environ getEnviron ( ) throws NeticaException

Returns the Environ this object belong's to.

Version:

This method is available in all versions (JAVA API only).

public String getLabel ( ) throws NeticaException

public String getLabel (

String

options

) throws NeticaException

public String getName ( ) throws NeticaException

Returns the identifer name of this object.

You can count on the name to be present, and to be a legal IDname , which means that it begins with a letter, is composed only of ascii letters, numbers, or underscores, and is NAME_MAX (30) or fewer characters in length.

Note that two different nets in Netica's memory may have the same name, however, two different nodes in a net always have distinct names, and two different node-states in the same node always have distinct names also.

If you have never set a Net's name, it will be assigned a default name of the form "Unnamed_#" where '#' is an integer.

If you have never set a State's name, this will return a default name of the form "s#" where '#' is the state index.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named GetNetName_bn, GetNodeName_bn, and GetNodeStateName_bn.

See Also:

setName		Sets it
getTitle		Longer, unrestricted label

public String getTitle ( ) throws NeticaException

Gets the unrestricted label of this object.

Returns the title of this object, or the empty string (rather than null) if this object does not have a title.

This may be different from this object's "name".

There is no restriction on the length of the title, or on what characters it might contain.

Keep in mind that titles are not necessarily unique.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named GetNetTitle_bn, GetNodeTitle_bn, and GetNodeStateTitle_bn.

See Also:

setTitle		Sets it
getName		Gets this object's name (limited chars and length, always exists)

public void removeListener (

NeticaListener

listener

) throws NeticaException

Removes the given listener from this object's list of listeners. If the object supplied is not a current listener, an exception will be thrown.

Parameters:

NeticaListener

listener

The object to be removed from the listener list.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named AddNetListener_bn and AddNodeListener_bn.

See Also:

addListener

Adds a listener to the listener list

public void setComment (

String

comment

) throws NeticaException

Sets the documentation or a description of an object.

This associates the character string comment with this object (net or node) to help document it.

The comment may contain anything, but is usually used to store such things as the origin of this object, its purpose or applicability, background information on the problem domain, a copyright notice, how to use this object, notes for future changes, etc. It is best if the comment consists only of that sort of descriptive information (and as ascii text characters), in order to meet expectations in case you share this Bayes net with other people or view it with Netica Application. If you wish to attach other data, and this object is a Net or Node, use its User object (retrieved with the user method).

To remove a comment, pass null or the empty string for comment.

Note. Currently State's do not have comment fields, and so an exception is thrown if you attempt to call this method on a State object.

Parameters:

String

comment

A text String of arbitrary length.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named SetNetComment_bn, SetNodeComment_bn, and SetNodeStateComment_bn.

See Also:

getComment		Retrieves value
user		To attach other types of information, and have it saved to file with the net

Example:

  // append String addon to the end of the existing comment for net
  //
  net.setComment( net.getComment() + addon);

public void setName (

String

name

) throws NeticaException

Changes the name of this object to be name.

name must be a legal IDname, which means it must have NAME_MAX (30) or fewer ascii characters, all of which are letters, digits or underscores, and it must start with a letter.

Two nodes in the same net may not have identical names, and two states in the same node may not have identical names (case sensitive comparison). (However, two nets in the same environment, may have identical names.)

Throws a NeticaException, if the name is invalid, explaining why it is invalid.

For General State objects only

• The default (initial) name for each state is "s#", where # is its stateIndex.
• If you pass null (not the empty string) for name, it will reset all the state names for the node to their defaults ("s0", "s1", ...).
• Discretized continuous nodes may have their states named, as well as regular discrete nodes. If you call this method on continuous nodes that have not been discretized, an exception will be thrown.
• It may be more convenient to set the names of all the states at the same time; for that, see Node.setStateNames.

Parameters:

String

name

The new name desired.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named SetNetName_bn, SetNodeName_bn, or SetNodeStateName_bn.

See Also:

getName		Retrieves value
setTitle		Doesn't have the restriction of an IDname

public void setTitle (

String

title

) throws NeticaException

Sets the title of this object to the unrestricted string title. There are no restrictions on its length or what characters it may contain (unlike the "name").

It is advised not to put too much information in the title, since the "comment" field is available for that.

To remove a title, pass null or the empty string for title.

Titles never have to be unique; two nodes in the same net can have the same title as can two states in the same node, although usually that is not advisable.

Parameters:

String

title

The new title desired.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.
In the C Version of the API, this function is named SetNetTitle_bn, SetNodeTitle_bn, and SetNodeStateTitle_bn.

See Also:

getTitle		Retrieves value
setName		The short, restricted name
setComment		For longer descriptions

public String toString ( )

Returns the value of getName.

Version:

This method is available in all versions.

Overrides:

toString in class java.lang.Object

public User user ( ) throws NeticaException

Retrieve the User object that stores user controlled data associated with this object.

Currently, only Net and Node objects have User objects.

Version:

Versions 2.20 and later have this method.