This virtual class represents a reduction, an actor that transforms a problem into an equivalent problem. By equivalent, we mean that there exists a mapping between solutions of either problem: if we reduce a problem \(A\) to another problem \(B\) and then proceed to find a solution to \(B\), we can convert it to a solution of \(A\) with at most a moderate amount of effort.
# S4 method for Reduction,Problem
accepts(object, problem)# S4 method for Reduction
reduce(object)
# S4 method for Reduction,Solution
retrieve(object, solution)
# S4 method for Reduction,Problem
perform(object, problem)
# S4 method for Reduction,Solution,list
invert(object, solution, inverse_data)
The data encoding the original problem.
accepts: States whether the reduction accepts a problem.
reduce: Reduces the owned problem to an equivalent problem.
retrieve: Retrieves a solution to the owned problem.
perform: Performs the reduction on a problem and returns an equivalent problem.
invert: Returns a solution to the original problem given the inverse data.
Every reduction supports three methods: accepts, perform, and invert. The accepts method of a particular reduction codifies the types of problems that it is applicable to, the perform method takes a problem and reduces it to a (new) equivalent form, and the invert method maps solutions from reduced-to problems to their problems of provenance.