01 /*
02 * SimpleAnnotation.java
03 *
04 * Copyright (c) 1995-2010, The University of Sheffield. See the file
05 * COPYRIGHT.txt in the software or at http://gate.ac.uk/gate/COPYRIGHT.txt
06 *
07 * This file is part of GATE (see http://gate.ac.uk/), and is free
08 * software, licenced under the GNU Library General Public License,
09 * Version 2, June 1991 (in the distribution as file licence.html,
10 * and also available at http://gate.ac.uk/gate/licence.html).
11 *
12 * Hamish Cunningham, 19/Jan/00
13 *
14 * $Id: SimpleAnnotation.java 12006 2009-12-01 17:24:28Z thomas_heitz $
15 */
16
17 package gate;
18
19 import java.io.Serializable;
20 import java.util.Set;
21
22 import gate.util.FeatureBearer;
23 import gate.util.IdBearer;
24
25 /** An Annotation is an arc in an AnnotationSet. It is immutable, to avoid
26 * the situation where each annotation has to point to its parent graph in
27 * order to tell it to update its indices when it changes.
28 * <P> Changes from TIPSTER: no ID; single span only.
29 *
30 * SimpleAnnotation was introduced to simplify the API of annotations
31 */
32 public interface SimpleAnnotation
33 extends FeatureBearer, IdBearer, Comparable, Serializable {
34
35 /** The type of the annotation (corresponds to TIPSTER "name"). */
36 public String getType();
37
38 /** The start node. */
39 public Node getStartNode();
40
41 /** The end node. */
42 public Node getEndNode();
43
44 /** Ordering */
45 public int compareTo(Object o) throws ClassCastException;
46
47 } // interface SimpleAnnotation,
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