Re: [boost] [chrono/date] class names

Subject: Re: [boost] [chrono/date] class names
From: Howard Hinnant (howard.hinnant_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-05-11 13:07:39

On May 11, 2013, at 12:31 PM, "Vicente J. Botet Escriba" <vicente.botet_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I would like to fix the names of date classes for the different representations. I'm not saying that all the representations need to be provided for a first release. Here it is my proposal.
> 
> The following are unchecked and non contextual dates classes
> 
> * calendar_date: field based representation of year + month + day.
> * serial_date: days based representation
> * ordinal_date: field based representation of year + day_of_year
> * week_date: field based representation of year + week + weekday
> 
> Checked dates classes names just add a  checked_ prefix to  the corresponding unchecked date classes.
> 
> * checked_calendar_date: field based representation of year + month + day.
> * checked_serial_date: days based representation
> * checked_ordinal_date: field based representation of year + day_of_year
> * checked_week_date: field based representation of year + week + weekday
> 
> We can also have an alias date
> template <typename Tag = serial, validity=validity::unchecked>
> class date;
> 
> so that
> 
> date<calendar> ~ calendar_date
> date<serial> ~ serial_date
> date<> ~ serial_date
> ...
> 
> I'm, open of course, to other defaults for these parameters, if the idea of an alias is accepted.
> 
> For the time been a single contextual date class should be enough, as all the contextual information is relative to the year/month/day representation.
> * contextual_date: field based representation of year + month + day + context-meta-data
> 
> Comments, critics and suggestions are welcome.

Two questions:

1.  Why are the checked-names longer/more-complex than the unchecked names?  I would've thought we wanted the opposite.

2.  What is the difference between the checked serial_date and the unchecked serial_date?  Just range checking?  Do we really want to range check a serial_date?  That will make day increment/decrement a lot more expensive percentage wise.

Howard