On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 3:23 AM, Oleg Kobchenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Transitive Closer (TC) is applying the same operation over and > over until the results stop changing.
Actually, that's a more general operation. Newton's method for finding the square root of a number would be an example of that kind of operation, but not an example of transitive closure. Transitive closure requires that you have some relationship between different elements that can exist. What the relationship is, and what the elements are can vary. But, for example, "less than" is a an example relationship, and "digits" are an example set of elements. So, for example, if you had a data structure which represented 0 < 1 1 < 2 2 < 3 3 < 4 4 < 5 5 < 6 6 < 7 7 < 8 8 < 9 Then the operation of building the derived data structure that also includes all derivable possibilities, such as 2 < 5 (because 2<3 and 3<4 and 4<5) is transitive closure. Put differently, transitive closure consists of finding the smallest possible set of necessarily true relations which is a struct superset of your original set of true relations such that this found set represents a transitive relation. (Also, any relationship can be dealt with this way, for example, if you had 5<3 or did not have 6<7 you would be representing a relationship different from the usual meaning of '<'.). -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
