FPCLASSIFY

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2015-08-08
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NAME

fpclassify, isfinite, isnormal, isnan, isinf - floating-point classification macros

SYNOPSIS

#include <math.h>

int fpclassify(x);

int isfinite(x);

int isnormal(x);

int isnan(x);

int isinf(x);

Link with -lm.

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

fpclassify(), isfinite(), isnormal():

: _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600 || _ISOC99_SOURCE || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L;
or cc -std=c99

isnan():

: _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE || _ISOC99_SOURCE || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L;
or cc -std=c99

isinf():

: _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600 || _ISOC99_SOURCE || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L;
or cc -std=c99

DESCRIPTION

Floating point numbers can have special values, such as infinite or NaN. With the macro fpclassify(x) you can find out what type x is. The macro takes any floating-point expression as argument. The result is one of the following values:

FP_NAN: x is "Not a Number".
FP_INFINITE: x is either positive infinity or negative infinity.
FP_ZERO: x is zero.
FP_SUBNORMAL: x is too small to be represented in normalized format.
FP_NORMAL: if nothing of the above is correct then it must be a normal floating-point number.

The other macros provide a short answer to some standard questions.

isfinite(x): returns a nonzero value if
(fpclassify(x) != FP_NAN && fpclassify(x) != FP_INFINITE)
isnormal(x): returns a nonzero value if (fpclassify(x) == FP_NORMAL)
isnan(x): returns a nonzero value if (fpclassify(x) == FP_NAN)
isinf(x): returns 1 if x is positive infinity, and -1 if x is negative infinity.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface	Attribute	Value
fpclassify(), isfinite(), isnormal(), isnan(), isinf()	Thread safety	MT-Safe

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C99.

For isinf(), the standards merely say that the return value is nonzero if and only if the argument has an infinite value.

NOTES

In glibc 2.01 and earlier, isinf() returns a nonzero value (actually: 1) if x is positive infinity or negative infinity. (This is all that C99 requires.)

COLOPHON

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