From: ahoward <ahoward@...>
Date: 2003-03-22T01:22:49+09:00
Subject: Re: infinite Time

On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In message "infinite Time"
>     on 03/03/21, ahoward <ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov> writes:
>
> |anyone know of a way to get at infinite times (if they exist) as one can for
> |Floats?
>
> Unfortunately, Time is a limited resource.  We cannot have times
> further than 2038-01-19 on most platforms.

i would very much like to see a few time constants, such as

  Time::NEGATIVE_INFINITY # perhaps alias NI
  Time::EPOCH             # perhaps alias E
  Time::INFINITY          # perhaps alias I

included in the Time class.

postgresql has these facilities and they are very usefull :

  entry = {
    :answer      => 42,
    :valid_begin => Time::NI,
    :valid_end   => Time::I,
  }

which states that 'the answer has been 42 from the beginning of time, and will
remain thus untill the end of time'

Time::NI has the property that

  Time::NI < all other times except Time::NI

it can be thought of as being 'the beginning of time'

and

Time::I has the property that

  Time::I > all other times except Time::I

it can be thought of as 'the end of time' or 'forever'

my 2c.

-a



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