//   Copyright 2012 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany
//
//   Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
//   you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
//   You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
//   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
//   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
//   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
//   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
//   limitations under the License.

package de.ugoe.cs.autoquest.tasktrees.temporalrelation;

import java.util.List;

import de.ugoe.cs.autoquest.tasktrees.treeifc.IUserSession;

/**
 * <p>
 * A session scope rule is able to detected temporal relationships between task instances of the
 * sessions provided to the {@link #apply(List<IUserSession>)} method. The rule creates temporal
 * relationships between the tasks of the task instances, i.e. substructures in the task tree, if
 * it detects a temporal relationship and instantiates the temporal relationships according to
 * their occurrences.
 * </p>
 * 
 * @author Patrick Harms
 */
interface ISessionScopeRule extends ITemporalRelationshipRule {

    /**
     * <p>
     * Applies the rule to the given sessions. The returned rule application result is null, if the
     * rule can not be applied, i.e. it does not detect a temporal relationship. It returns a rule
     * application result with a status {@link RuleApplicationStatus#RULE_APPLICATION_FINISHED} if
     * the rule was applied. The result contains all newly created tasks and task instances.
     * </p>
     * 
     * @param sessions the session on which the rule shall be applied
     *                    
     * @return the rule application result as described.
     */
    RuleApplicationResult apply(List<IUserSession> sessions);

}