ostore.introspect
Interface Time

All Superinterfaces:
Comparable, QuickSerializable
All Known Implementing Classes:
SimpleRealTime, Time.NeverTime

public interface Time
extends Comparable, QuickSerializable

A component representing a particular moment in time (either logical or physical, or some other metric). We must be able to compute the distance between two time values and determine whether one was before or after another.

IMPORTANT: implementing classes should be correctly handle comparison to the NeverTime time.

Version:
$Id: Time.java,v 1.2 2003/03/15 01:35:39 jeffpang Exp $
Author:
Jeff Pang

Nested Class Summary
static class Time.NeverTime
          Time that is before all other time.
 
Field Summary
static Time NEVER
          A special value that indicates a time infinitely in the past.
 
Method Summary
 Distance difference(Time to)
          Distance from this Time to to time.
 
Methods inherited from interface java.lang.Comparable
compareTo
 
Methods inherited from interface ostore.util.QuickSerializable
serialize
 

Field Detail

NEVER

public static final Time NEVER
A special value that indicates a time infinitely in the past.

Method Detail

difference

public Distance difference(Time to)
Distance from this Time to to time.

Parameters:
to - next time
Returns:
|to - this| distance