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This artifact contains the API of AutomataLib, which mainly consists of interfaces for the various concepts and automaton models supported by the AutomataLib core. In addition to that, it also defines some fundamental classes for dealing with words of symbols.

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/* Copyright (C) 2013 TU Dortmund
 * This file is part of AutomataLib, http://www.automatalib.net/.
 * 
 * AutomataLib is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License version 3.0 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 * 
 * AutomataLib 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
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with AutomataLib; if not, see
 * http://www.gnu.de/documents/lgpl.en.html.
 */
package net.automatalib.words;

import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Comparator;

import net.automatalib.commons.util.array.ArrayWritable;

/**
 * Class implementing an (indexed) alphabet. An alphabet is a collection of symbols, where
 * each symbol has a (unique) index. Apart from serving as a collection, this class also provides
 * a one-to-one mapping between symbols and indices.
 * 
 * @param  symbol class.
 * 
 * @author Malte Isberner 
 */
public interface Alphabet extends ArrayWritable, Collection, Comparator {

    /**
     * Returns the symbol with the given index in this alphabet.
     * @param index the index of the requested symbol.
     * @return symbol with the given index. 
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if there is no symbol with this index.
     */
    public abstract I getSymbol(int index) throws IllegalArgumentException;
    
    /**
     * Returns the index of the given symbol in the alphabet. 
     * @param symbol
     * @return
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the provided symbol does not belong to the alphabet.
     */
    public abstract int getSymbolIndex(I symbol) throws IllegalArgumentException;
}