@@ -131,29 +131,26 @@ SELECT isempty(numrange(1, 5));
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<title>Infinite (Unbounded) Ranges</title>
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<para>
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- The lower bound of a range can be omitted, meaning that all points less
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- than the upper bound are included in the range. Likewise, if the upper
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- bound of the range is omitted, then all points greater than the lower bound
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- are included in the range. If both lower and upper bounds are omitted, all
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- values of the element type are considered to be in the range.
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+ The lower bound of a range can be omitted, meaning that all
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+ values less than the upper bound are included in the range, e.g.,
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+ <literal>(,3]</literal>. Likewise, if the upper bound of the range
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+ is omitted, then all values greater than the lower bound are included
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+ in the range. If both lower and upper bounds are omitted, all values
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+ of the element type are considered to be in the range. Specifying a
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+ missing bound as inclusive is automatically converted to exclusive,
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+ e.g., <literal>[,]</literal> is converted to <literal>(,)</literal>.
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+ You can think of these missing values as +/-infinity, but they are
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+ special range type values and are considered to be beyond any range
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+ element type's +/-infinity values.
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</para>
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<para>
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- This is equivalent to considering that the lower bound is <quote>minus
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- infinity</quote>, or the upper bound is <quote>plus infinity</quote>,
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- respectively. But note that these infinite values are never values of
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- the range's element type, and can never be part of the range. (So there
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- is no such thing as an inclusive infinite bound — if you try to
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- write one, it will automatically be converted to an exclusive bound.)
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- </para>
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-
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- <para>
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- Also, some element types have a notion of <quote>infinity</quote>, but that
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- is just another value so far as the range type mechanisms are concerned.
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- For example, in timestamp ranges, <literal>[today,]</literal> means the same
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- thing as <literal>[today,)</literal>. But <literal>[today,infinity]</literal> means
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- something different from <literal>[today,infinity)</literal> — the latter
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- excludes the special <type>timestamp</type> value <literal>infinity</literal>.
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+ Element types that have the notion of <quote>infinity</quote> can
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+ use them as explicit bound values. For example, with timestamp
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+ ranges, <literal>[today,infinity)</literal> excludes the special
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+ <type>timestamp</type> value <literal>infinity</literal>,
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+ while <literal>[today,infinity]</literal> include it, as does
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+ <literal>[today,)</literal> and <literal>[today,]</literal>.
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</para>
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<para>
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