jcgp.backend.parameters

Class Parameter<T>

java.lang.Object

jcgp.backend.parameters.Parameter<T>

Type Parameters:

T - the data type stored in the parameter.

Direct Known Subclasses:

BooleanParameter, DoubleParameter, IntegerParameter

public abstract class Parameter<T>
extends java.lang.Object

Specifies an abstract model of a module parameter.

Parameters are values which control the operation of modules. They can be freely modified and accessed by the module in which they are declared. Additionally, the module may choose to expose some of its parameters to a user interface, so that information is displayed. If that is the case, the parameter can be made read-only by setting the monitor flag (it becomes a parameter monitor). In addition, settings the critical flag indicates to the experiment that any changes to the parameter should result in an experiment-wide reset.

Parameter is abstract. A typical implementation defines the data type T and initialises the valueProperty field with a suitable type. For the sake of clarity, it may not be ideal for a subclass constructor to expose an argument for the monitor field. Instead, a different class should be created which constructs the parameter as a monitor, so that the distinction between a regular parameter and a parameter monitor is more apparent. The boolean, integer and double implementations of parameter (and their associated monitors) implement this pattern, refer to them for more details.

The status field holds the current status of the parameter, which should change whenever the parameter value changes. In order for this to happen, validate() is called whenever the parameter status should be updated. This being the case, it should be overridden on an instance-to-instance basis, as each parameter will likely have different validity criteria. The type of status is ParameterStatus, an enum type defining all valid states.

Author:

Eduardo Pedroni

See Also:

Module

Property Summary

Type	Property and Description
javafx.beans.property.ReadOnlyProperty<T>	value This method is intended for bindings only.

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
T	get()
ParameterStatus	getStatus()
boolean	isCritical()
boolean	isMonitor()
void	set(T newValue) Sets the parameter to the specified value, if the property is not bound.
java.lang.String	toString()
abstract void	validate(T newValue) This is a callback method which gets called whenever changes to parameters (not only its own instance) are made.
javafx.beans.property.ReadOnlyProperty<T>	valueProperty() This method is intended for bindings only.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

equals, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait

Property Detail

value

public javafx.beans.property.ReadOnlyProperty<T> valueProperty

This method is intended for bindings only. Changes to the parameter value should be made using set().

Method Detail

isMonitor

public boolean isMonitor()

Returns:

true if the parameter is a monitor.

isCritical

public boolean isCritical()

Returns:

true if the parameter is critical.

getStatus

public ParameterStatus getStatus()

Returns:

the current status of the parameter.

valueProperty

public javafx.beans.property.ReadOnlyProperty<T> valueProperty()

This method is intended for bindings only. Changes to the parameter value should be made using set().

get

public T get()

Returns:

the parameter's current value.

set

public void set(T newValue)

Sets the parameter to the specified value, if the property is not bound.

Parameters:

newValue - the new value for the parameter.

validate

public abstract void validate(T newValue)

This is a callback method which gets called whenever changes to parameters (not only its own instance) are made. This method is intended to set the status field according to the new value, so that the user can be informed if any parameters are currently set to invalid values.

Parameters:

newValue - the new value.

toString

public java.lang.String toString()

Overrides:

toString in class java.lang.Object