Get rid of isInfinite()?

[Timon Gehr]

On 06/25/2012 07:26 PM, Mehrdad wrote:
> I feel like isInfinite is useless for typical cases... the only
> "infinite" (perhaps I should call it "unbounded" instead?) range I've
> ever realistically come across  is a stream, like console input or a
> network stream.
>

Console input or network streams can be terminated.

> Of course, isInfinite doesn't make any sense for any type of wrapper
> around console input -- is it true or false?
> You can't tell, because it depends on whether the input is redirected.
> If the console input was redirected, then it would be finite, with a
> certain length (the length of the file).
> If not, then it would be infinite (er, unbounded).
>

Infinite lazy ranges are an useful abstraction. You could read up on
Haskell. Lists in Haskell programs are often infinite.


> So IMHO, we should deprecate isInfinite entirely, and instead rely on
> length being size_t.max.
>

Infinite ranges do not have a length.

> Not only would it make more sense, but it would make it possible to
> create a random-access wrapper around an input range (like console
> input), which lazily fetches its data.
> Then you can work with console input like a regular string!

An infinite range can be buffered lazily just fine.