API design: (start,length) vs (start,end)

[Brian Goetz]

That's a good point.  I had thought there was more precedent for (start, 
length) but I am not finding it right now.  (The inconsistency is made 
more unfortunate by the fact that both use (int,int) so its easy to get 
it wrong.)

We'll take a look and see what the impact would be here.

On 11/20/2012 1:23 PM, Per Bothner wrote:
> The Java APIs have many methods that select a slice of a
> sequence or an array, but there is no consistency as to
> how to specify the slice: Many places uses (fromIndex,
> toIndex), and many other places uses (fromIndex,length).
>
> Specifically, I notice that java.util.streams.Streams uses
> (fromIndex,length), while *older* methods in java.util.Arrays
> use (fromIndex, toIndex), but the newly added ones use
> (fromIndex,length).
>
> This inconsistency is unfortunate.  As mentioned the Java APIs
> are already inconsistent, so to some extent we just have to
> live with it, but the inconsistency within the Arrays class
> seems extra unfortunate.
>
> Was there a considered decision to use (fromIndex,length)
> instead of (fromIndex,toIndex) in new methods?  When designing
> my own APIs is there any reason to choose one or the other?
>