Is there a “canonical” name for a function combining min() and max()?

Question

I find that I frequently end up writing a function that I always call \"clamp()\", that is kind of a combination of min() and max(). Is t

Answer 1

In some languages you have the function limit

num = limit(val, min, max)

Answer 2

What do you think of things like InRangeClosestTo(Number, RangeLowerBound, RangeUpperBound), or ClosestInRange(Number, LowerBoundOfRange, UpperBoundOfRange)? They mean 'Get me the element of the range closest to the number', as I hope is obvious.

The concept is more precise than a Clamp that yeah has two sides but not much more, or a Limit or Bound that might not want to return anything if the number is not within the range,

To me they are clearer then the rest I saw; although it can take a couple of seconds to understand them, you only need to reason about the name, and at most have a brief look at the comment for confirmation; and it's nice when you see how precise it is (it is precise, right?).

You might only have doubts on whether the range is inclusive or not, but I think most people would correctly assume it's inclusive. Alternatively you might use InInclRangeClosestTo and InExclRangeClosestTo, althought I don't see a lot of uses for exclusive ranges.

Of course you should have an auto-completing IDE if you wanted to use them.

Answer 3

clamp is a good name.

Let us make it the standard.

Answer 4

clip(val, lo, hi)

Answer 5

What about bound?

bound(min, val, max)

Or constrain?

constrain(val, min, max)

Answer 6

I'd just go for a function name "rangeCheck"