IRangeComparator (Eclipse Platform API Specification)

All Known Subinterfaces:

ITokenComparator

All Known Implementing Classes:

TokenComparator
```
public interface IRangeComparator
```
For breaking an object to compare into a sequence of comparable entities.
It is used by RangeDifferencer to find longest sequences of matching and non-matching ranges.
For example, to compare two text documents and find longest common sequences of matching and non-matching lines, the implementation must break the document into lines. getRangeCount would return the number of lines in the document, and rangesEqual would compare a specified line given with one in another IRangeComparator.

Clients should implement this interface; there is no standard implementation.

Method Summary

All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods
Modifier and Type	Method	Description
`int`	`getRangeCount()`	Returns the number of comparable entities.
`boolean`	`rangesEqual(int thisIndex, IRangeComparator other, int otherIndex)`	Returns whether the comparable entity given by the first index matches an entity specified by the other `IRangeComparator` and index.
`boolean`	`skipRangeComparison(int length, int maxLength, IRangeComparator other)`	Returns whether a comparison should be skipped because it would be too costly (or lengthy).

- Method Detail
  - getRangeCount
```
int getRangeCount()
```
    Returns the number of comparable entities.
    
    Returns:
    
    the number of comparable entities
  - rangesEqual
```
boolean rangesEqual(int thisIndex,
                    IRangeComparator other,
                    int otherIndex)
```
    Returns whether the comparable entity given by the first index matches an entity specified by the other IRangeComparator and index.
    
    Parameters:
    
    thisIndex - the index of the comparable entity within this IRangeComparator
    
    other - the IRangeComparator to compare this with
    
    otherIndex - the index of the comparable entity within the other IRangeComparator
    
    Returns:
    
    true if the comparable entities are equal
  - skipRangeComparison
```
boolean skipRangeComparison(int length,
                            int maxLength,
                            IRangeComparator other)
```
    Returns whether a comparison should be skipped because it would be too costly (or lengthy).
    
    Parameters:
    
    length - a number on which to base the decision whether to return true or false
    
    maxLength - another number on which to base the decision whether to return true or false
    
    other - the other IRangeComparator to compare with
    
    Returns:
    
    true to avoid a too lengthy range comparison