uk.ac.ic.doc.automed.matching.relationships
Class SemanticRelationship

java.lang.Object
  uk.ac.ic.doc.automed.matching.relationships.SemanticRelationship

Direct Known Subclasses:

Compatibility, Disjointness, Equivalence, Incompatibility, Overlapness, Subsumption

public abstract class SemanticRelationship
extends java.lang.Object

The SemanticRelationship class represents the semantic relationship between two schema elements. Semantic relationships are directed, i.e. the relationship between two elements A,B depends on the direction that they are compared. There are four types of semantic relationships: equivalence, subsumption, overlapness and disjointness. Subsumption can either be a subset or a superset. Relationships have strength. The strongest relationship is equivalence and the weakest is disjointness.

Constructor Summary

SemanticRelationship()

Method Summary

abstract boolean	equals(java.lang.Object o) Compares this object against the specified object.
abstract java.lang.String	getName() Returns the name of the SemanticRelationship object
static SemanticRelationship	getSemanticRelationship(int index)
protected abstract int	getStrength() Returns the strength of the SemanticRelationship object.
boolean	isStronger(SemanticRelationship rel) Returns true if this object's relationship is stronger that the specified object's relationship.
abstract java.lang.String	toString()

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

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

Constructor Detail

SemanticRelationship

public SemanticRelationship()

Method Detail

getName

public abstract java.lang.String getName()

Returns the name of the SemanticRelationship object

Returns:

the name of the SemanticRelationship object

equals

public abstract boolean equals(java.lang.Object o)

Compares this object against the specified object.

Overrides:

equals in class java.lang.Object

Returns:

true if the objects are the same, false otherwise.

toString

public abstract java.lang.String toString()

Overrides:

toString in class java.lang.Object

getStrength

protected abstract int getStrength()

Returns the strength of the SemanticRelationship object.

Returns:

the strength of the SemanticRelationship object.

isStronger

public boolean isStronger(SemanticRelationship rel)

Returns true if this object's relationship is stronger that the specified object's relationship.

Returns:

true if this object's relationship is stronger that the specified object's re lationship, false otherwise.

getSemanticRelationship

public static SemanticRelationship getSemanticRelationship(int index)