ClusteringAlgorithm

Type Parameters:

T - The element type being clustered.

All Known Implementing Classes:

AutomaticClusterer, FeatureBasedClusterer, GeneralisedKMeans, GreedyClusterer, GreedyClustering, KMeansClusterer, RandomClustering, SpectralClusterer

Functional Interface:

This is a functional interface and can therefore be used as the assignment target for a lambda expression or method reference.
```
@FunctionalInterface
public interface ClusteringAlgorithm<T>
```
Strategy interface for clustering algorithms.
Implementations partition a collection of items into disjoint, non-empty clusters. Each cluster is represented as a Set<T> containing the items assigned to that cluster; the result of cluster(Collection) is a List<Set<T>> with one set per cluster. Unless otherwise stated by a specific implementation, the following apply:
- Each input item appears in exactly one cluster (no overlap). - The order of clusters and the order of items within a cluster are unspecified.
- The result contains no empty clusters.
- Implementations may be deterministic or randomized and may impose additional preconditions on the input.
Thread-safety: Implementations are not required to be thread-safe.

Method Summary

All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods
Modifier and Type	Method	Description
`java.util.List<java.util.Set<T>>`	`cluster(java.util.Collection<T> input)`	Partitions the given items into clusters.

- Method Detail
  - cluster
```
java.util.List<java.util.Set<T>> cluster(java.util.Collection<T> input)
```
    Partitions the given items into clusters.
    
    Parameters:
    
    input - The items to cluster; must not be null. May be empty.
    
    Returns:
    
    A list of clusters; each element of the list is a Set<T> representing one cluster and containing its members. Sets are non-empty and pairwise disjoint; ordering is unspecified.
    
    Throws:
    
    java.lang.IllegalArgumentException - If implementation-specific preconditions are violated.