Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: markspace <-@.>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: Arithmetic overflow checking
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 10:40:22 -0700
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <j0hle9$7da$1@dont-email.me>
References: <015aeb15-57db-48ab-9cd4-77f8448b632f@w24g2000yqw.googlegroups.com> <b3d4a08b-3428-442a-8cce-30edc2868a47@5g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> <09fe171s46ilvq9qmn254dctunm6noh0ps@4ax.com> <f6ed8d08-bc7a-43e4-aecf-878511705353@j15g2000yqf.googlegroups.com> <4e262731$0$314$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <j059o8$684$1@dont-email.me> <4e26300b$0$309$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <cdyVp.5929$Vn5.2217@newsfe18.iad> <4e26b4ed$0$2501$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk> <f126e0ad-e1e5-47c8-949e-e38b3598d5ff@m5g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <4e28097f$0$2533$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk> <f9939820-502d-4973-b008-0b62536ab967@m3g2000pre.googlegroups.com> <slrnj2ghv0.6gl.avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> <7a23c9d2-508f-4dbd-af91-8cdf2a9764e1@p29g2000pre.googlegroups.com> <j09t06$4bo$1@dont-email.me> <slrnj2jc3u.6gl.avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> <IMBWp.68441$5v5.52239@newsfe11.iad> <slrnj2mdoi.6gl.avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> <j0g1i4$nus$1@speranza.aioe.org> <ueidnUcxuMPT2LHTnZ2dnUVZ_uKdnZ2d@earthlink.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:40:25 +0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="XjIWM99mD7Ijfdu600oVPA"; logging-data="7594"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/lPG3yZzQQCwBfNVyw0KS6MR7BBCsZMlE="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:5.0) Gecko/20110624 Thunderbird/5.0
In-Reply-To: <ueidnUcxuMPT2LHTnZ2dnUVZ_uKdnZ2d@earthlink.com>
Cancel-Lock: sha1:BFF/0iS6nKyau89YwaryPfH1JeU=
Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:6512

On 7/24/2011 9:16 AM, Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> I think it might be better to create a marker interface
> java.math.Arithmetic. I do like the idea of a fixed mapping from
> operators to method names that are normal identifiers.


I'd be concerned that a marker interface could be abused.

public abstract class BaseNumber extends Number {
   public abstract BaseNumber add( Number n );
   public abstract BaseNumber subtract( Number n );
   public abstract BaseNumber mul( Number n );
   public abstract BaseNumber[] div( Number n );
   public abstract BaseNumber modulo( Number n );
}

Then restrict operator overloading to a class like BaseNumber and its 
subclasses.  Some classes in the existing Java API like BigDecimal may 
need to also extend BaseNumber.