From: raja@... (Raja S.)
Date: 2001-02-23T12:40:08+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:11362] Re: numerical limits

"Ben Tilly" <ben_tilly@hotmail.com> writes:
> You could add a method to do it for Fixnum based on
> the existing size method.  See:
>    http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ref_c_fixnum.html
> Floats don't seem to have any way to do it:
>    http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ref_c_float.html

So it seems.

In one of the apps I'm working on I have multiple streams of data which are
sampled at various times.  Sometimes a sampling could be empty.  I need to
find the minimum from each sampling and do further processing.  Using a
default of Float::MAX just makes the code a little bit simpler when dealing
with the situation when a stream is empty.  Of course a MAX could be just
faked.  Just thought Float::MAX was conceptually elegant.

>>If it isn't currently builtin, it seems that as the language evolves, this
>>may be one of the dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's issue.

It's not a show stopper.  Just thought a platform independent way of
determining the numerical bounds would make the language more "complete" in
some sense and be useful on occasion.

Regards,
Raja