Re: Range types

Tom Lane wrote:
> I wrote:
>> The proposed problem is certainly soluble without any assumptions
>> of discreteness.
> 
> To be concrete, I think it could be approached like this:
> 
> Assume the datatype provides a built-in function
> 
>     period_except(p1 period, p2 period) returns setof period
> 
> which can return zero, one, or two rows depending on the inputs:
> 
> no rows if p1 is completely contained in p2
> 
> one row if p1 partially overlaps p2, for example:
> 
>     [1,4] except [3,5] returns [1,3)
>     [4,6] except [1,5) returns [5,6]
> 
> two rows if p1 properly contains p2, for example
> 
>     [1,10] except [4,5] returns [1,4) and (5,10]
>     [1,10] except [9,10) returns [1,9) and [10,10]
> 
> and of course just p1 if p1 and p2 don't overlap at all.
> 
> Given such a function it's a simple matter of successively removing each
> element of p2[] from the set representing the current members of p1[].
> The way that I'd find most natural to code that is a loop, along the
> lines of
> 
>     foreach p2_member in unnest(p2) loop
>       p1 := array(select period_except(p1_member, p2_member)
>                   from unnest(p1) p1_member);
>     end loop;
> 
> But maybe it can be done in a single SQL command.
> 
> As this example makes clear, when dealing with continuous intervals you
> *must* admit both open and closed intervals, else you don't have a way
> to represent the results of "except".  Maybe part of the failure to
> communicate here arises from your desire to try to avoid supporting both
> kinds of intervals.  But I think you really have to do it if you want to
> deal with data that hasn't got any natural granularity.
> 
>             regards, tom lane

Alright well I'm going to calm down a bit and take a step back. Perhaps 
I'm just too close to the issue and not thinking outside of the box that 
I've built. Let me see if I can make everything work rather than arguing 
why it wont.

Scott