Re: Ranged Types (was: Hijacking a Thread)

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <1042177570.752923@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> To go back on topic for a minute (what a concept!), another thread
> got me wondering just how useful in practice ranged types are.
> What situations lead one to declare a type which is limited to a
> range of integers? I'm thinking fixed-size arrays, which I usually
> consider to be a design error.

Fixed size arrays are not a error in many situations, such as
tracking the N highest instances of a particular event. Of
course overflowing the index type would also be detected as
overflowing the array.

In declaring such an array, I typically base the array limits
on the 'first and 'last attributes of the type so that a later
change to make that 150 entries need only be made in one place.