// ByteOrder.java
// -----------------------------
// (C) 2008 by Michael Peter Christen; mc@yacy.net, Frankfurt a. M., Germany
// first published 10.01.2008 on http://yacy.net
//
// This is a part of YaCy, a peer-to-peer based web search engine
//
// $LastChangedDate$
// $LastChangedRevision$
// $LastChangedBy$
//
// LICENSE
// 
// This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
// it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
// the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
// (at your option) any later version.
//
// This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
// GNU General Public License for more details.
//
// You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
// along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
// Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

package net.yacy.kelondro.order;

import net.yacy.cora.ranking.Order;
import net.yacy.kelondro.index.HandleSet;
import net.yacy.kelondro.index.RowSpaceExceededException;


public interface ByteOrder extends Order<byte[]> {

    public boolean wellformed(byte[] a);
    
    public boolean wellformed(byte[] a, int start, int len);

    public int compare(byte[] a, byte[] b);
    
    public int compare(byte[] a, int astart, byte[] b, int bstart, int len);

    public boolean equal(final byte[] a, final byte[] b);
    
    public boolean equal(final byte[] a, int astart, final byte[] b, int bstart, int length);
   
    public long cardinal(final byte[] a, int off, int len);
    
    public HandleSet getHandleSet(final int keylength, final int space) throws RowSpaceExceededException;

    public byte[] smallest(byte[] a, byte[] b);

    public byte[] largest(byte[] a, byte[] b);
}