    // Copyright (C) 2011  Davis E. King (davis@dlib.net)
    // License: Boost Software License   See LICENSE.txt for the full license.
    #undef DLIB_STRUCTURAL_ASSiGNMENT_TRAINER_ABSTRACT_H__
    #ifdef DLIB_STRUCTURAL_ASSiGNMENT_TRAINER_ABSTRACT_H__

    #include "../algs.h"
    #include "structural_svm_assignment_problem.h"
    #include "assignment_function_abstract.h"

    namespace dlib
    {

    // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        template <
            typename feature_extractor
            >
        class structural_assignment_trainer
        {
            /*!
                REQUIREMENTS ON feature_extractor
                    It must be an object that implements an interface compatible with
                    the example_feature_extractor defined in dlib/svm/assignment_function_abstract.h.

                WHAT THIS OBJECT REPRESENTS
                    This object is a tool for learning to solve an assignment problem based
                    on a training dataset of example assignments.  The training procedure produces an
                    assignment_function object which can be used to predict the assignments of
                    new data.

                    Note that this is just a convenience wrapper around the
                    structural_svm_assignment_problem to make it look
                    similar to all the other trainers in dlib.
            !*/

        public:
            typedef typename feature_extractor::lhs_element lhs_element;
            typedef typename feature_extractor::rhs_element rhs_element;
            typedef std::pair<std::vector<lhs_element>, std::vector<rhs_element> > sample_type;
            typedef std::vector<long> label_type;
            typedef assignment_function<feature_extractor> trained_function_type;

            structural_assignment_trainer (
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #get_c() == 100
                    - this object isn't verbose
                    - #get_epsilon() == 0.01
                    - #get_num_threads() == 2
                    - #get_max_cache_size() == 5
                    - #get_feature_extractor() == a default initialized feature_extractor
                    - #forces_assignment() == false
            !*/

            explicit structural_assignment_trainer (
                const feature_extractor& fe
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #get_c() == 100
                    - this object isn't verbose
                    - #get_epsilon() == 0.01
                    - #get_num_threads() == 2
                    - #get_max_cache_size() == 40
                    - #get_feature_extractor() == fe
                    - #forces_assignment() == false
            !*/

            const feature_extractor& get_feature_extractor (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns the feature extractor used by this object
            !*/

            void set_num_threads (
                unsigned long num
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #get_num_threads() == num
            !*/

            unsigned long get_num_threads (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns the number of threads used during training.  You should
                      usually set this equal to the number of processing cores on your
                      machine.
            !*/

            void set_epsilon (
                double eps
            );
            /*!
                requires
                    - eps > 0
                ensures
                    - #get_epsilon() == eps
            !*/

            double get_epsilon (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns the error epsilon that determines when training should stop.
                      Smaller values may result in a more accurate solution but take longer
                      to train.  You can think of this epsilon value as saying "solve the
                      optimization problem until the average number of assignment mistakes per
                      training sample is within epsilon of its optimal value".
            !*/

            void set_max_cache_size (
                unsigned long max_size
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #get_max_cache_size() == max_size
            !*/

            unsigned long get_max_cache_size (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - During training, this object basically runs the assignment_function on
                      each training sample, over and over.  To speed this up, it is possible to
                      cache the results of these invocations.  This function returns the number
                      of cache elements per training sample kept in the cache.  Note that a value
                      of 0 means caching is not used at all.
            !*/

            void be_verbose (
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - This object will print status messages to standard out so that a
                      user can observe the progress of the algorithm.
            !*/

            void be_quiet (
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - this object will not print anything to standard out
            !*/

            void set_oca (
                const oca& item
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #get_oca() == item
            !*/

            const oca get_oca (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns a copy of the optimizer used to solve the structural SVM problem.
            !*/

            void set_c (
                double C
            );
            /*!
                requires
                    - C > 0
                ensures
                    - #get_c() = C
            !*/

            double get_c (
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns the SVM regularization parameter.  It is the parameter
                      that determines the trade-off between trying to fit the training
                      data (i.e. minimize the loss) or allowing more errors but hopefully
                      improving the generalization of the resulting assignment_function.
                      Larger values encourage exact fitting while smaller values of C may
                      encourage better generalization.
            !*/

            void set_forces_assignment (
                bool new_value
            );
            /*!
                ensures
                    - #forces_assignment() == new_value
            !*/

            bool forces_assignment(
            ) const;
            /*!
                ensures
                    - returns the value of the forces_assignment() parameter for the
                      assignment_functions generated by this object.
            !*/

            const assignment_function<feature_extractor> train (
                const std::vector<sample_type>& samples,
                const std::vector<label_type>& labels
            ) const;
            /*!
                requires
                    - is_assignment_problem(samples,labels) == true
                    - if (forces_assignment()) then
                        - is_forced_assignment_problem(samples,labels) == true
                ensures
                    - Uses the structural_svm_assignment_problem to train an
                      assignment_function on the given samples/labels training pairs.
                      The idea is to learn to predict a label given an input sample.
                    - returns a function F with the following properties:
                        - F(new_sample) == A set of assignments indicating how the elements of
                          new_sample.first match up with the elements of new_sample.second.
                        - F.forces_assignment() == forces_assignment()
                        - F.get_feature_extractor() == get_feature_extractor()
            !*/
        };

    // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    }

    #endif // DLIB_STRUCTURAL_ASSiGNMENT_TRAINER_ABSTRACT_H__