Re: Some possible enhancements for java.time.Duration?
On 6/15/21 10:15 AM, dfranken@gmail.com wrote: Dear readers, I think java.time.Duration is a pretty useful class and after having to work a lot with it, I recognized there might be some enhancements we could make (where 'enhancement' is a subjective term of course). For instance: Comparison -- boolean isGreaterThan(Duration duration) / isLongerThan(..) boolean isSmallerThan(Duration duration) / isShorterThan(..) English is not my primary language so I don't know which of these aliases would be better. Given that classes such as Instant and OffsetDateTime also have comparison methods (isAfter, isBefore), I think it would be useful if Duration had easy comparison methods. Of course we have compareTo(..) but I always get confused what it actually means when I get a positive or negative number. :) A small tip when using compareTo, don´t think about the numbers but the operation. Always compare to 0 object1.compareTo(object2) > 0 ==> object1 > object2 You only change the comparison operator, and it always means object1 object2 More comparison --- static Duration max(Duration d1, Duration d2) static Duration min(Duration d1, Duration d2) Returns the longest resp. shortest of the two durations, where negative durations are shorter than positive durations. Side note: I have not found an easy method to obtain the max resp. min values of elements which implement Comparable, I could only come up with something like: Stream.of(Duration.ZERO, Duration.ofSeconds(1L)) .max/min(Comparator.naturalOrder()) .orElse(null); It could be worthwile to add generic methods such as public static > T max(T... elements) public static > T min(T... elements) in the Comparator class. Disallowing negative value -- Okay, this one is a bit more farfetched, but a method which would be useful for my use case is to have an alternative of between() which is never negative and just truncates to zero if it happens to be negative. I'm measuring a duration between timestamps which come from different systems which should be in sync with their NTP servers (and each other), but there may still be some time dilation which could lead to weird results making it look like the effect happened before the cause. So I could see some use for a method like: Duration positiveOrZero() Kind regards, Dave Franken
Re: Some possible enhancements for java.time.Duration?
On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 at 15:16, wrote: > Comparison > -- > boolean isGreaterThan(Duration duration) / isLongerThan(..) > boolean isSmallerThan(Duration duration) / isShorterThan(..) > > English is not my primary language so I don't know which of these > aliases would be better. Given that classes such as Instant and > OffsetDateTime also have comparison methods (isAfter, isBefore), I > think it would be useful if Duration had easy comparison methods. Of > course we have compareTo(..) but I always get confused what it actually > means when I get a positive or negative number. :) Maybe. Classes like OffsetDateTime have such methods because equals() and compareTo() have different definitions. My gut feeling is that this should not be done until Valhalla project has decided what if anything it will do with the need for operator overloading on value types. > More comparison > --- > static Duration max(Duration d1, Duration d2) > static Duration min(Duration d1, Duration d2) I don't see the point of this. If such methods are to be added, they should be generic, taking any Comparable > Disallowing negative value > -- > Okay, this one is a bit more farfetched, but a method which would be > useful for my use case is to have an alternative of between() which is > never negative and just truncates to zero if it happens to be negative. > > I'm measuring a duration between timestamps which come from different > systems which should be in sync with their NTP servers (and each > other), but there may still be some time dilation which could lead to > weird results making it look like the effect happened before the cause. I understand the use case, but it is too marginal for Duration IMO. thanks Stephen
Some possible enhancements for java.time.Duration?
Dear readers, I think java.time.Duration is a pretty useful class and after having to work a lot with it, I recognized there might be some enhancements we could make (where 'enhancement' is a subjective term of course). For instance: Comparison -- boolean isGreaterThan(Duration duration) / isLongerThan(..) boolean isSmallerThan(Duration duration) / isShorterThan(..) English is not my primary language so I don't know which of these aliases would be better. Given that classes such as Instant and OffsetDateTime also have comparison methods (isAfter, isBefore), I think it would be useful if Duration had easy comparison methods. Of course we have compareTo(..) but I always get confused what it actually means when I get a positive or negative number. :) More comparison --- static Duration max(Duration d1, Duration d2) static Duration min(Duration d1, Duration d2) Returns the longest resp. shortest of the two durations, where negative durations are shorter than positive durations. Side note: I have not found an easy method to obtain the max resp. min values of elements which implement Comparable, I could only come up with something like: Stream.of(Duration.ZERO, Duration.ofSeconds(1L)) .max/min(Comparator.naturalOrder()) .orElse(null); It could be worthwile to add generic methods such as public static > T max(T... elements) public static > T min(T... elements) in the Comparator class. Disallowing negative value -- Okay, this one is a bit more farfetched, but a method which would be useful for my use case is to have an alternative of between() which is never negative and just truncates to zero if it happens to be negative. I'm measuring a duration between timestamps which come from different systems which should be in sync with their NTP servers (and each other), but there may still be some time dilation which could lead to weird results making it look like the effect happened before the cause. So I could see some use for a method like: Duration positiveOrZero() Kind regards, Dave Franken
