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diff --git a/src/de/lmu/ifi/dbs/elki/algorithm/Algorithm.java b/src/de/lmu/ifi/dbs/elki/algorithm/Algorithm.java
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+package de.lmu.ifi.dbs.elki.algorithm;
+/*
+This file is part of ELKI:
+Environment for Developing KDD-Applications Supported by Index-Structures
+
+Copyright (C) 2011
+Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
+Lehr- und Forschungseinheit für Datenbanksysteme
+ELKI Development Team
+
+This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 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 Affero General Public License for more details.
+
+You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+*/
+
+import de.lmu.ifi.dbs.elki.data.type.TypeInformation;
+import de.lmu.ifi.dbs.elki.database.Database;
+import de.lmu.ifi.dbs.elki.result.Result;
+import de.lmu.ifi.dbs.elki.utilities.optionhandling.Parameterizable;
+
+/**
+ * <p>
+ * Specifies the requirements for any algorithm that is to be executable by the
+ * main class.
+ * </p>
+ * <p/>
+ * <p>
+ * Any implementation needs not to take care of input nor output, parsing and so
+ * on. Those tasks are performed by the framework. An algorithm simply needs to
+ * ask for parameters that are algorithm specific.
+ * </p>
+ * <p/>
+ * <p>
+ * <b>Note:</b> Any implementation is supposed to provide a constructor without
+ * parameters (default constructor).
+ * </p>
+ * 
+ * @author Arthur Zimek
+ */
+public interface Algorithm extends Parameterizable {
+  /**
+   * Runs the algorithm.
+   * 
+   * @param database the database to run the algorithm on
+   * @return the Result computed by this algorithm
+   * @throws IllegalStateException if the algorithm has not been initialized
+   *         properly (e.g. the setParameters(String[]) method has been failed
+   *         to be called).
+   */
+  Result run(Database database) throws IllegalStateException;
+
+  /**
+   * Get the input type restriction used for negotiating the data query.
+   * 
+   * @return Type restriction
+   */
+  public TypeInformation[] getInputTypeRestriction();
+}
+\ No newline at end of file