# The performance of saturating operations or adding intrinsics

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-performance-of-saturating-operations-or-adding-intrinsics/48575>\
**Category:** Performance\
**Created:** [October 18, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-performance-of-saturating-operations-or-adding-intrinsics/48575 "2020-10-18T06:07:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![kimikage](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kimikage/32/14534_2.png) [@kimikage](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kimikage)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-performance-of-saturating-operations-or-adding-intrinsics/48575/9 "2020-10-19T02:18:02Z")

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> [@Elrod](#):
>
> Yes. This requires VectorizationBase’s master branch:

Very nice! 👍

I consider LoopVectorization.jl to be a “semi-standard” library, so I don’t see any problem with that feature being added to VectorizationBase.jl. Saturating arithmetic, however, is a concept orthogonal to vectorization.

I have (or I had) plans to add `saturating_*` to the `CheckedArithmeticCore` until `Core`, `Base` or `stdlib` supports saturating arithmetic (and for it to be available in past versions once it is supported).  
cf. [Add `saturating_*` and `wrapping_*` API definitons to `CheckedArithmeticCore` · Issue #9 · JuliaMath/CheckedArithmetic.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaMath/CheckedArithmetic.jl/issues/9)

This is an aside, but `FixedPointNumbers#master` implements the `saturating_*` functions instead of the `saturated_*`. The names are taken from Rust. Between `checked_*` and `checking_*`, I think the former is obviously more appropriate. (Rust uses the `overflowing_*` for checked arithmetic, and Rust’s experimental API supports `*_with_overflow`, though.) However I’m not sure which is better, `saturating_*` or `saturated_*`. (I prefer `saturating_*` in terms of not being able to determine whether it will or will not be saturated until the evaluation.)

I don’t think the name itself is very important (as [we can use aliases](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/rfc-what-should-the-arithmetic-within-the-fixedpointnumbers-be/46697/41) 😄), but I think we need to be cautious about the name collision because saturation arithmetic is a very “intrinsic” concept.

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