//   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 de.ugoe.cs.autoquest.tasktrees.treeifc.ITaskInstanceList;

/**
 * <p>
 * a task instance list scope rule is able to detected temporal relationships between a list of task
 * instances provided to the {@link #apply(ITaskInstanceList)} method. A rule creates temporal
 * relationships between the task instances, i.e. substructures in the task tree, if
 * it detects a temporal relationship and instantiates the temporal relationships accordingly.
 * </p>
 * 
 * @author Patrick Harms
 */
interface ITaskInstanceListScopeRule extends ITemporalRelationshipRule {

  /**
   * <p>
   * applies the rule to the given task instance list. 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 parent tasks and task instances.
   * </p>
   * 
   * @param taskInstances the list of task instances to apply the rule on
   *                    
   * @return the rule application result as described.
   */
  RuleApplicationResult apply(ITaskInstanceList taskInstances);
  
}
