001/*
002 * Copyright (c) 2015-2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
003 *
004 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
005 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
006 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
007 *
008 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
009 *
010 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
011 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
012 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express implied.
013 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
014 * limitations under the License.
015 */
016
017package org.tribuo.transform;
018
019import com.oracle.labs.mlrg.olcut.config.Configurable;
020import com.oracle.labs.mlrg.olcut.provenance.Provenancable;
021
022/**
023 * An interface representing a class of transformations
024 * which can be applied to a feature.
025 * <p>
026 * Transformations first have to be fitted, where they
027 * gather the appropriate data statistics (e.g., min and max value).
028 * The {@link TransformStatistics} can then be converted
029 * into a {@link Transformer} which can apply the transform
030 * to a feature value.
031 * <p>
032 * Transformations are configurable, but not serializable.
033 * Describe them in config files or code.
034 */
035public interface Transformation extends Configurable, Provenancable<TransformationProvenance> {
036
037    /**
038     * Creates the statistics object for this Transformation.
039     * @return The statistics object.
040     */
041    public TransformStatistics createStats();
042
043}