Some methods fail on typemin/typemax(::BigInt)

[quinnj]

Discussed in #6712
There are a few algorithms in Base that use typemin(T) which fail for BigInt.

findmax{T}(A::AbstractArray{T}, region) at reducedim.jl#288

In  [24]: t = eye(BigInt,100);

In  [25]: findmax(t,2)

Out [25]: ERROR: no method typemin(Type{BigInt})
while loading In[25], in expression starting on line 1
 in findmax at reducedim.jl:288

And

maximum{T}(A::SparseMatrixCSC{T}, region) sparse/sparsematrix.jl#695

cc: @lindahua

[quinnj]

As well as the original issue in #6712,

function rationalize{T<:Integer}(::Type{T}, x::FloatingPoint; tol::Real=eps(x))
    if isnan(x);       return zero(T)//zero(T); end
    if x < typemin(T); return -one(T)//zero(T); end
    if typemax(T) < x; return  one(T)//zero(T); end
    tm = x < 0 ? typemin(T) : typemax(T)

But there's already #5935 about fixing rationalize.

[Liozou]

I think the introduction of hastypemax back in #16844 has solved the root of this (old) issue. Should it be closed?

[KristofferC]

Yes, that seems reasonable.