code: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  // For information as to what this class does, see the Javadoc, below.       //
  // Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,       //
  // 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015 by Peter Spirtes, Richard Scheines, Joseph   //
  // Ramsey, and Clark Glymour.                                                //
  //                                                                           //
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  // it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by      //
  // the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or         //
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  // but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of            //
  // MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the             //
  // GNU General Public License for more details.                              //
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  // You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License         //
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  // Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA //
  ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  
  package edu.cmu.tetrad.util;
  
  import java.io.Serializable;
  
  /**
   * <p>Interface to tag a class that is part of the set of serializable classes
   * in the Tetrad API. These classes must have all of their serialiable fields
   * marked with @serial tags, and they may only have serializable fields that are
   * primitive, TetradSerializable, arrays of some TetradSerializable type,
   * Collection or Map classes, or String or Class fields. They must also have a
   * static final long field called 'serialVerUID' set to 23L. Classes in this set
   * may never change their class name or package path once published, and the
   * type of any serializable member field may never be changed to an incompatible
   * type. (For primitives, change the type at all constitutes an incompatible
   * change.) If these conditions are all met, then Tetrad sessions saved out in
   * one version will load in later versions of Tetrad. They may load with
   * incorrect information if, for instance, the name of a field is changed or the
   * interpretation of that field changes. So in general, when making a class
   * TetradSerializable, please make sure that its member fields all have good
   * names (that you won't want to change later) and all have clear
   * interpretations (that you won't want to change later).</p> <p>If that all
   * sounds like a pain, the payoff is that even very large Tetrad sessions will
   * load quickly. This isn't currently true, from what I can tell, for any XML
   * renderer/parser on the market. If a Tetrad session contains a dataset with 50
   * and 5000 cases, for instance, binary serialization will load it in well under
   * a second, whereas XML parsers that I've checked don't come back in under 5
   * minutes.</p> <p>The test class that checks the above conditions are
   * TestSerialization, which in turn uses methods in TetradSerializableUtils.
   * More details can be find there.</p>
   * <p>
   * <p>See TestSerialization and TestSerializiableUtils.</p>
   *
   * @author Joseph Ramsey
   */
  public interface TetradSerializable extends Serializable {
  }
  
  
  
  
  
  