package sprax.tries;

import java.util.List;

/**

* Given some incomplete or in-progress text entry, return some

* possible or most likely completions. It may be useful to

* think of the text as a query.

*

* There are three main use cases this API should support:

*

* 1) The user has not yet typed enough.

* There may be many possible completions, so which are the most likely?

* a) complete words

* b) stems that are not complete words, and multiple possible completions as words

* c) *neither* -- stems that are not complete, yet only have one possible

* completion: don't display these.

* 2) The user has typed too much. The beginning may have been good,

* but they kept going and ran off the end of the known world.

* Maybe it's a typo, maybe it's a new and very specific query that has

* never before been seen. Can we distinguish a typo from other novelty?

* How much (of the beginning) of the query should we use?

* 3) Too much and too little, both. The beginning was usable, the

* middle not, but the end looks like a usable prefix again.

*

* So there are at least three questions:

* 1) What are the most probable completions of an under-specified query?

* 2) Can typos be detected and repaired?

* 3) How much of a non-matching query can be optimally used, by either

* repairing or ignoring the parts that do not match anything?

*

*

* @author sprax

*

*/

public interface AutoCompleteInterface

{

/** To return a list of all possible completions */

public List<String> getPossible(String prefix);

/** To return a list of at most <code>limit</code> possible completions */

public List<String> getPossible(String prefix, int limit);

/** To return a list of any probable completions */

public List<String> getProbable(String prefix);

/** To return a list of at most <code>limit</code> probable completions */

public List<String> getProbable(String prefix, int limit);

/** To return a list of at most <code>limit</code> matchable starts */

public List<String> getProbablePrefixes(String prefix, int limit);

/** To return a list of at most <code>limit</code> matchable finishes */

public List<String> getProbableSuffixes(String prefix, int limit);

/** To return a list of at most <code>limit</code> matchable finishes */

public List<String> getProbableRepaired(String prefix, int limit);

}