simplenlg.framework

Class DocumentElement

java.lang.Object

simplenlg.framework.NLGElement

simplenlg.framework.DocumentElement

public class DocumentElement
extends NLGElement

DocumentElement is a convenient extension of the base NLGElement class. It used to define elements that form part of the textual structure (documents, sections, paragraphs, sentences, lists). It essentially operates as the base class with the addition of some convenience methods for getting and setting features specific to this type of element.

TextElements can be structured in a tree-like structure where elements can contain child components. These child components can in turn contain other child components and so on. There are restrictions on the type of child components a particular element type can have. These are explained under the DocumentCategory enumeration.

Instances of this class can be created through the static create methods in the OrthographyProcessor.

Version:

4.0

Author:

D. Westwater, University of Aberdeen.

Field Summary

Fields inherited from class simplenlg.framework.NLGElement

features

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Constructor and Description
DocumentElement() The blank constructor.
DocumentElement(DocumentCategory category, String textTitle) Creates a new DocumentElement with the given category and title.

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	addComponent(NLGElement element) Add a single child component to the current list of child components.
void	addComponents(List<?> textComponents) Adds a collection of NLGElements to the list of child components.
void	clearComponents() Removes all the child components from this element.
List<NLGElement>	getChildren() Child elements of a DocumentElement are the components.
List<NLGElement>	getComponents() Retrieves the child components of this element.
String	getTitle() Retrieves the title of this element.
String	printTree(String indent)
boolean	removeComponent(NLGElement textComponent) Removes the specified component from the list of child components.
void	setComponents(List<NLGElement> components) Replaces the existing components with the supplied list of components.
void	setTitle(String textTitle) Sets the title of this element.

Methods inherited from class simplenlg.framework.NLGElement

clearAllFeatures, equals, equals, getAllFeatureNames, getAllFeatures, getCategory, getFactory, getFeature, getFeatureAsBoolean, getFeatureAsDouble, getFeatureAsElement, getFeatureAsElementList, getFeatureAsFloat, getFeatureAsInteger, getFeatureAsList, getFeatureAsLong, getFeatureAsString, getFeatureAsStringList, getParent, getRealisation, getTense, hasFeature, isA, isNegated, isPlural, removeFeature, setCategory, setFactory, setFeature, setFeature, setFeature, setFeature, setFeature, setFeature, setNegated, setParent, setPlural, setRealisation, setTense, toString

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

DocumentElement

public DocumentElement()

The blank constructor. Using this constructor will require manual setting of the element's category and title.

DocumentElement

public DocumentElement(DocumentCategory category,
                       String textTitle)

Creates a new DocumentElement with the given category and title.

Parameters:

category - the category for this element.

textTitle - the title of this element, predominantly used with DOCUMENT and SECTION types.

Method Detail

setTitle

public void setTitle(String textTitle)

Sets the title of this element. Titles are specifically used with documents (the document name) and sections (headings).

Parameters:

textTitle - the new title for this element.

getTitle

public String getTitle()

Retrieves the title of this element.

Returns:

the title of this element as a string.

getComponents

public List<NLGElement> getComponents()

Retrieves the child components of this element.

Returns:

a List of NLGElements representing the child components.

addComponent

public void addComponent(NLGElement element)

Add a single child component to the current list of child components. If there are no existing child components a new list is created.

Note that there are restrictions on which child types can be added to which parent types. Intermediate nodes are added if necessary; eg, if a sentence is added to a document, the sentence will be embedded in a paragraph before it is added See DocumentCategory for further information.

Parameters:

element - the NLGElement to be added. If this is NULL the method does nothing.

addComponents

public void addComponents(List<?> textComponents)

Adds a collection of NLGElements to the list of child components. If there are no existing child components, then a new list is created.

As with addComponents(...) only legitimate child types are added to the list.

Parameters:

textComponents - the List of NLGElements to be added. If this is NULL the method does nothing.

removeComponent

public boolean removeComponent(NLGElement textComponent)

Removes the specified component from the list of child components.

Parameters:

textComponent - the component to be removed.

Returns:

true if the element was removed, or false if the element did not exist, there is no component list or the the given component to remove is NULL.

clearComponents

public void clearComponents()

Removes all the child components from this element.

getChildren

public List<NLGElement> getChildren()

Child elements of a DocumentElement are the components. This method is the same as calling getComponents().

Specified by:

getChildren in class NLGElement

Returns:

a List of NLGElements representing the children of this element.

setComponents

public void setComponents(List<NLGElement> components)

Replaces the existing components with the supplied list of components. This is identical to calling:

     clearComponents();
     addComponents(components);
 

printTree

public String printTree(String indent)

Overrides:

printTree in class NLGElement