X-Git-Url: http://git.megacz.com/?p=sbp.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=src%2Fedu%2Fberkeley%2Fsbp%2FElement.java;h=7eb6a59b53f170689fdc395a8fae574165d38008;hp=33bfd8d7d08f5027e136aef1eaff959dfbf92ce7;hb=2c1c0293545f3d12c23220fd05c663e6aa3f3de1;hpb=5d18f5606c9296e6b0c5749f05fc68f358ace2f6

diff --git a/src/edu/berkeley/sbp/Element.java b/src/edu/berkeley/sbp/Element.java
index 33bfd8d..7eb6a59 100644
--- a/src/edu/berkeley/sbp/Element.java
+++ b/src/edu/berkeley/sbp/Element.java
@@ -7,12 +7,15 @@ import java.util.*;
 import java.lang.reflect.*;
 import java.lang.ref.*;
 
-/** the root superclass for all components of the grammar (terminals, nonterminals, literals, etc) */
-public abstract class Element {
+/** <font color=green>the root superclass for all components of the grammar (terminals, nonterminals, literals, etc)</font> */
+public abstract class Element implements SequenceOrElement {
+
+    /** sorry, you can't make up new, custom elements */
+    Element() { }
 
     abstract StringBuffer toString(StringBuffer sb);
 
-    /** if this element always matches exactly one token, return a topology covering exactly those possible tokens, otherwise <tt>null</tt> */
-    Forest epsilonForm() { return null; }
+    /** returns the Forest resulting from matching this element against the empty string */
+    Forest<?> epsilonForm() { throw new Error("element " + this + " has no epsilon form"); }
 
 }