001/*
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
008 *
009 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010 *
011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015 * limitations under the License.
016 */
017package org.apache.commons.rng;
018
019/**
020 * Applies to generators that can be advanced a large number of
021 * steps of the output sequence in a single operation.
022 *
023 * @since 1.3
024 */
025public interface JumpableUniformRandomProvider extends UniformRandomProvider {
026    /**
027     * Creates a copy of the UniformRandomProvider and then advances the
028     * state of the current instance. The copy is returned.
029     *
030     * <p>The current state will be advanced in a single operation by the equivalent of a
031     * number of sequential calls to a method that updates the state of the provider. The
032     * size of the jump is implementation dependent.</p>
033     *
034     * <p>Repeat invocations of this method will create a series of generators
035     * that are uniformly spaced at intervals of the output sequence. Each generator provides
036     * non-overlapping output for the length of the jump for use in parallel computations.</p>
037     *
038     * @return A copy of the current state.
039     */
040    UniformRandomProvider jump();
041}