iglu.ir
Interface InformationSource

All Known Subinterfaces:

SearchEngine

All Known Implementing Classes:

FileSearchEngine, RAMSearchEngine

public interface InformationSource

A generic interface for queryable information sources.

Note that this interface does not restrict the types of objects that can be returned from a source. Any class using an information source should either be aware of the capabilities of the particular source it is using, or carefully check the types of the objects returned by retrieveDocuments.

Version:

1.0

Author:

Ryan Scherle rscherle@acm.org

Method Summary

java.lang.String	getDescription() Returns a textual description of this information source.
java.lang.String	getName() Returns the name of this source.
ValueSortedMap	retrieveDocuments(TermVector query, int numToRetrieve) Retrieves documents from the information source that match a given query in a particular context.

Method Detail

getName

public java.lang.String getName()

Returns the name of this source.

getDescription

public java.lang.String getDescription()

Returns a textual description of this information source.

retrieveDocuments

public ValueSortedMap retrieveDocuments(TermVector query,
                                        int numToRetrieve)

Retrieves documents from the information source that match a given query in a particular context. No more than numToReceive documents are returned.