compareTimeSpans function

TimeComparisonResult compareTimeSpans({ required int startA, required int endA, required int startB, required int endB, })

Compares time spans representing for example two GpsStay entities.

Comparison must be defined such that comparing A to B gives the opposite result than comparing B to A for the before/after results, but it gives the same result for the same/overlapping results. Without this inverse commutative behaviour, sorting and searching may give very strange behaviour.

The following preconditions are given:

• for any item X: X.start <= X.end Hence it's not needt to check for inverted time segments.
• the stay is defined as being exclusive of X.end itself. That means that for two points M and N with M.end = N.start, M can be regarded as being before N (there is no overlap since at the moment of M.end, i.e. N.start, the position value of N will be valid). However, if M.start == M.end == N.start, there is overlap as both the position of M and that of N are valid at time M.start.

the comparison is defined as follows:

-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------
Rule       | Condition              | Result
-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------
1)      if | (A.end <= B.start &&   | A before B
           |  A.start != B.start)   |
           |                        |
           |   A +---+              |
           |           B +---+      |
           |                        |
           |   A +---+              |
           |       B +---+          |
-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------
2) else if | (B.end <= A.start &&   | A after B (inverse of rule 1)
           |  A.start != B.start)   |
           |                        |
           |   B +---+              |
           |           A +---+      |
           |                        |
           |   B +---+              |
           |       A +---+          |
-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------
3) else if | (A.start == B.start && | A same as B
           |  A.end == B.end)       |
           |                        |
           |   A +---+              |
           |   B +---+              |
-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------
4) else    |                        | overlapping (undefined sorting)
           |   B +---+              |
           |      A +---+           |
           |                        |
           |   A +---+              |
           |      B +---+           |
           |                        |
           |                        |
           |   A +                  |
           |   B +---+              |
           |                        |
           |   B +                  |
           |   A +---+              |
           |                        |
           |   A +-------+          |
           |   B   +--+             |
           |                        |
           |   B +-------+          |
           |   A   +--+             |
-----------+------------------------+----------------------------------

Implementation

TimeComparisonResult compareTimeSpans(
    {required int startA,
    required int endA,
    required int startB,
    required int endB}) {
  final sameStartAB = startA == startB;

  // Rule 1.
  final cmpEndAStartB = compareIntRepresentationTime(endA, startB);
  if ((cmpEndAStartB == TimeComparisonResult.same ||
          cmpEndAStartB == TimeComparisonResult.before) &&
      !sameStartAB) {
    return TimeComparisonResult.before;
  }

  // Rule 2.
  final cmpEndBStartA = compareIntRepresentationTime(endB, startA);
  if ((cmpEndBStartA == TimeComparisonResult.same ||
          cmpEndBStartA == TimeComparisonResult.before) &&
      !sameStartAB) {
    return TimeComparisonResult.after;
  }

  // Rule 3.
  final sameEndAB = endA == endB;
  if (sameStartAB && sameEndAB) {
    return TimeComparisonResult.same;
  }

  // Rule 4.
  return TimeComparisonResult.overlapping;
}