/**
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You 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 org.apache.camel.processor.resequencer;

import java.util.Comparator;

/**
 * A strategy for comparing elements of a sequence.
 * 
 * @version 
 */
public interface SequenceElementComparator<E> extends Comparator<E> {

    /**
     * Returns <code>true</code> if <code>o1</code> is an immediate predecessor
     * of <code>o2</code>.
     * 
     * @param o1 a sequence element.
     * @param o2 a sequence element.
     * @return true if its an immediate predecessor
     */
    boolean predecessor(E o1, E o2);
    
    /**
     * Returns <code>true</code> if <code>o1</code> is an immediate successor
     * of <code>o2</code>.
     * 
     * @param o1 a sequence element.
     * @param o2 a sequence element.
     * @return true if its an immediate successor
     */
    boolean successor(E o1, E o2);

    /**
     * Returns <tt>true</tt> if the <code>o1</code> can be used in this comparator.
     *
     * @param o1 a sequence element
     * @return true if its usable for this comparator
     */
    boolean isValid(E o1);
    
}
