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.
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.
accepts(object = Reduction, problem = Problem)
: States whether the reduction accepts a problem.
reduce(Reduction)
: Reduces the owned problem to an equivalent problem.
retrieve(object = Reduction, solution = Solution)
: Retrieves a solution to the owned problem.
perform(object = Reduction, problem = Problem)
: Performs the reduction on a problem and returns an equivalent problem.
invert(object = Reduction, solution = Solution, inverse_data = list)
: Returns a solution to the original problem given the inverse data.