Crate saturating_time 

saturating-time

A trait for limits and saturations on types inside std::time.

• Easy: saturating-time only adds a single trait, SaturatingTime that is implemented for various types from the standard library.
• Future-Proof: In the case that SaturatingTime::saturating_add() and SaturatingTime::saturating_sub() become a part of the standard library, developers would only have to remove the use saturating_time::SaturatingTime line from their code.^{1 2}.
• Portable: The algorithm for determining the limits is portable across operating systems: enjoy this crate from Windows, Darwin, and Linux, across the BSD systems, up to exotic ones such as Hermit OS and Redox.
• Secure: This crate does not make any use of unsafe Rust code.

Overview

saturating-time is a very minimal crate that only exposes a minimal trait: SaturatingTime.

The trait itself offers the following methods:

• SaturatingTime::max_value() – Returns the maximum value for this type.
• SaturatingTime::min_value() – Returns the minimum value for this type.
• SaturatingTime::saturating_add() – Saturating addition for this type.
• SaturatingTime::saturating_sub() – Saturating subtraction for this type.
• SaturatingTime::saturating_duration_since() - Saturating time deltas for this type.

This trait is sealed, meaning applications may not implement it themselves. However, this crate implements this trait for two structures:

• std::time::Instant
• std::time::SystemTime

Example

Add saturating-time to your Cargo.toml.

If you use Rust nightly, you may want to additionally configure the following in your .cargo/config.toml:

[build]
rustflags = ["--cfg", "saturating_time_nightly"]

Now, you can use saturating-time in your code:

use std::time::{Duration, SystemTime};
use saturating_time::SaturatingTime;

// Get the maximum and minimum.
let max = SystemTime::max_value();
let min = SystemTime::min_value();

assert_eq!(max.saturating_add(Duration::new(1, 0)), max);
assert_eq!(min.saturating_sub(Duration::new(1, 0)), min);
assert!(max.saturating_duration_since(SystemTime::UNIX_EPOCH) >= Duration::ZERO);

Standardization Efforts

The eventual goal is to get this functionality into the Rust standard library.

SystemTime

SystemTime::MIN and SystemTime::MAX

In December 2025, SystemTime::MIN and SystemTime::MAX got merged into nightly.³

This feature is guarded behind time_systemtime_limits and a tracking issue regarding the stabilization of it exists.⁴

SystemTime::saturating_add(), et, al.

In January 2025, SystemTime::saturating_add(), SystemTime::saturating_sub(), and SystemTime::saturating_duration_since() got merged into nightly.⁵

This feature is guarded behind time_saturating_systemtime and a tracking issue regarding the stabilization of it exists.⁶

Instant

None yet.

History

Up until (and including) version 0.4.0, saturating-time was maintained as an independent project hosted on Codeberg.

Starting with version 0.5.0, it has been incorporated into the Arti and is therefore maintained by The Tor Project, Inc.

License and Copyright

This crate is licensed under MIT OR Apache-2.0.

---

1. This is an effort the maintainers are actively working upon. ↩

2. Assuming the name, signature, and behavior does not change. Unfortunately, we likely have to change the signature for the parameters because we currently use self whereas the standard library uses &self. It should not be a big problem though, because both Instant and SystemTime implement Copy. ↩

3. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/149979 ↩

4. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/149067 ↩

5. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/151200 ↩

6. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/151199 ↩

Modules

internal 🔒

Internal parts used for sealing.

Traits

SaturatingTime

The core trait of this crait, SaturatingTime.