perl-Set-IntSpan

Manages sets of integers

'Set::IntSpan' manages sets of integers. It is optimized for sets that have long runs of consecutive integers. These arise, for example, in .newsrc files, which maintain lists of articles: alt.foo: 1-21,28,31 alt.bar: 1-14192,14194,14196-14221 A run of consecutive integers is sometimes called a _span_. Sets are stored internally in a run-length coded form. This provides for both compact storage and efficient computation. In particular, set operations can be performed directly on the encoded representation. 'Set::IntSpan' is designed to manage finite sets. However, it can also represent some simple infinite sets, such as { x | x>n }. This allows operations involving complements to be carried out consistently, without having to worry about the actual value of INT_MAX on your machine.