RE: [boost] Formal Review for Interval Library beginning

From: Rozental, Gennadiy (Gennadiy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-03 14:17:06

> My particular application is in the area of static analysis. 
> Given this 
> system, we might try to analyze the code:
> 
>   int x; 
>   // ...
>   if (x > 0) {
>     // do something...
>   }
>   else {
>     // do something else
>   }
> 
> We might use interval comparison to determine if x > 0 
> (indeterminate) and 
> then intersection to compute the values of x within the 'if' 
> and 'else' 
> branches based on the condition. Within the 'if' branch, the 
> value of x is 
> the intersection of x with [1, +Infinity] and within the 
> "else" branch the 
> value of x is the intersection of x with [-Infinity, 0].
> 
> 	Doug

I was wroking in the same domain for some time. Interval arithmetic does is
very useful here. Note though that in most cases we need more generic
anstraction - ordered list of intervals possibly open or half open. IOW
after several steps in your analisys you may end up that value of x belongs
to 
[0,1) + (1,2] + [5,6]. Now I want to operate with this "area of definition"
as with one value. for example if next statement is x /=2; new value is  [0]
+ [1] + [2,3]

And IMO interval library should support this. 

Gennadiy.