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GATE - general achitecture for text engineering - is open source software capable of solving almost any text processing problem. This artifact enables you to embed the core GATE Embedded with its essential dependencies. You will able to use the GATE Embedded API and load and store GATE XML documents. This artifact is the perfect dependency for CREOLE plugins or for applications that need to customize the GATE dependencies due to confict with their own dependencies or for lower footprint.

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/*
 *  Annotation.java
 *
 *  Copyright (c) 1995-2012, The University of Sheffield. See the file
 *  COPYRIGHT.txt in the software or at http://gate.ac.uk/gate/COPYRIGHT.txt
 *
 *  This file is part of GATE (see http://gate.ac.uk/), and is free
 *  software, licenced under the GNU Library General Public License,
 *  Version 2, June 1991 (in the distribution as file licence.html,
 *  and also available at http://gate.ac.uk/gate/licence.html).
 *
 *  Hamish Cunningham, 19/Jan/00
 *
 *  $Id: Annotation.java 17542 2014-03-05 10:36:35Z markagreenwood $
 */

package gate;

import gate.event.AnnotationListener;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Set;

/** An Annotation is an arc in an AnnotationSet. It is immutable, to avoid
  * the situation where each annotation has to point to its parent graph in
  * order to tell it to update its indices when it changes.
  *  Changes from TIPSTER: no ID; single span only.
  * 
  * It inherits from SimpleAnnotation in order to allow users to add events
  * and more methods for comparing annotations
  *
  * The event code is needed so a persistent annotation set can listen to
  * its annotations and update correctly the database
  */
public interface Annotation
extends SimpleAnnotation, Serializable {

  /** This verifies if this annotation is compatible with another one.
    * Compatible means that they hit the same possition and the FeatureMap of
    * this is incuded into aAnnot FeatureMap.
    * @param anAnnot a gate Annotation.
    * @return true if aAnnot is compatible with this and
    * false otherwise.
    */
  public boolean isCompatible(Annotation anAnnot);

  /** This verifies if this annotation is compatible with another one,
   *  given a set with certain keys.
    * In this case, compatible means that they hit the same possition
    * and those keys from this's FeatureMap intersected with
    * aFeatureNamesSet are incuded together with their values into the aAnnot's
    * FeatureMap.
    * @param anAnnot a gate Annotation.
    * @param aFeatureNamesSet is a set containing certian key that will be
    * intersected with this's FeatureMap's keys.
    * @return true if aAnnot is compatible with this and
    * false otherwise.
    */
  public boolean isCompatible(Annotation anAnnot, Set aFeatureNamesSet);

  /** This method verifies if two annotation and are partially compatible.
    * Partially compatible means that they overlap and the FeatureMap of
    * this is incuded into FeatureMap of aAnnot.
    * @param anAnnot a gate Annotation.
    * @return true if this is partially compatible with
    * aAnnot and false otherwise.
    */
  public boolean isPartiallyCompatible(Annotation anAnnot);

  /** This method verifies if two annotation and are partially compatible,
    * given a set with certain keys.
    * In this case, partially compatible means that they overlap
    * and those keys from this's FeatureMap intersected with
    * aFeatureNamesSet are incuded together with their values into the aAnnot's
    * FeatureMap.
    * @param anAnnot a gate Annotation.
    * @param aFeatureNamesSet is a set containing certian key that will be
    * intersected with this's FeatureMap's keys.
    * @return true if this is partially compatible with
    * aAnnot and false otherwise.
    */
  public boolean isPartiallyCompatible(Annotation anAnnot,Set aFeatureNamesSet);

  /**  Two Annotation are coestensive if their offsets are the same.
    *  @param anAnnot A Gate annotation.
    *  @return true if two annotation hit the same possition and
    *  false otherwise
    */
  public boolean coextensive(Annotation anAnnot);

  /** 
   * This method determines if this overlaps aAnnot, i.e. if either
   * the beginning or the end (or both) of anAnnot is
   * contained in the span of this.
   * 
   * @param aAnnot a gate Annotation.
   * @return true if they overlap and false false if
   * they don't or if aAnnot is null.
   */
  public boolean overlaps(Annotation aAnnot);
  
  /** This method tells if this annotation's text range is 
   * fully contained within the text annotated by aAnnot's
   * annotation. 
   * @param aAnnot a gate Annotation.
   * @return true if this annotation is fully contained in the 
   * other one.
   */
  public boolean withinSpanOf(Annotation aAnnot);

  /**
   *
   * Removes an annotation listener
   */
  public void removeAnnotationListener(AnnotationListener l);
  /**
   *
   * Adds an annotation listener
   */
  public void addAnnotationListener(AnnotationListener l) ;

} // interface Annotation,