fenv(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | NOTES | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

fenv(3)                  Library Functions Manual                 fenv(3)

NAME         top

       feclearexcept, fegetexceptflag, feraiseexcept, fesetexceptflag,
       fetestexcept, fegetenv, fegetround, feholdexcept, fesetround,
       fesetenv, feupdateenv, feenableexcept, fedisableexcept,
       fegetexcept - floating-point rounding and exception handling

LIBRARY         top

       Math library (libm, -lm)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <fenv.h>

       int feclearexcept(int excepts);
       int fegetexceptflag(fexcept_t *flagp, int excepts);
       int feraiseexcept(int excepts);
       int fesetexceptflag(const fexcept_t *flagp, int excepts);
       int fetestexcept(int excepts);

       int fegetround(void);
       int fesetround(int rounding_mode);

       int fegetenv(fenv_t *envp);
       int feholdexcept(fenv_t *envp);
       int fesetenv(const fenv_t *envp);
       int feupdateenv(const fenv_t *envp);

DESCRIPTION         top

       These eleven functions were defined in C99, and describe the
       handling of floating-point rounding and exceptions (overflow,
       zero-divide, etc.).

   Exceptions
       The divide-by-zero exception occurs when an operation on finite
       numbers produces infinity as exact answer.

       The overflow exception occurs when a result has to be represented
       as a floating-point number, but has (much) larger absolute value
       than the largest (finite) floating-point number that is
       representable.

       The underflow exception occurs when a result has to be represented
       as a floating-point number, but has smaller absolute value than
       the smallest positive normalized floating-point number (and would
       lose much accuracy when represented as a denormalized number).

       The inexact exception occurs when the rounded result of an
       operation is not equal to the infinite precision result.  It may
       occur whenever overflow or underflow occurs.

       The invalid exception occurs when there is no well-defined result
       for an operation, as for 0/0 or infinity - infinity or sqrt(-1).

   Exception handling
       Exceptions are represented in two ways: as a single bit (exception
       present/absent), and these bits correspond in some implementation-
       defined way with bit positions in an integer, and also as an
       opaque structure that may contain more information about the
       exception (perhaps the code address where it occurred).

       Each of the macros FE_DIVBYZERO, FE_INEXACT, FE_INVALID,
       FE_OVERFLOW, FE_UNDERFLOW is defined when the implementation
       supports handling of the corresponding exception, and if so then
       defines the corresponding bit(s), so that one can call exception
       handling functions, for example, using the integer argument
       FE_OVERFLOW|FE_UNDERFLOW.  Other exceptions may be supported.  The
       macro FE_ALL_EXCEPT is the bitwise OR of all bits corresponding to
       supported exceptions.

       The feclearexcept() function clears the supported exceptions
       represented by the bits in its argument.

       The fegetexceptflag() function stores a representation of the
       state of the exception flags represented by the argument excepts
       in the opaque object *flagp.

       The feraiseexcept() function raises the supported exceptions
       represented by the bits in excepts.

       The fesetexceptflag() function sets the complete status for the
       exceptions represented by excepts to the value *flagp.  This value
       must have been obtained by an earlier call of fegetexceptflag()
       with a last argument that contained all bits in excepts.

       The fetestexcept() function returns a word in which the bits are
       set that were set in the argument excepts and for which the
       corresponding exception is currently set.

   Rounding mode
       The rounding mode determines how the result of floating-point
       operations is treated when the result cannot be exactly
       represented in the significand.  Various rounding modes may be
       provided: round to nearest (the default), round up (toward
       positive infinity), round down (toward negative infinity), and
       round toward zero.

       Each of the macros FE_TONEAREST, FE_UPWARD, FE_DOWNWARD, and
       FE_TOWARDZERO is defined when the implementation supports getting
       and setting the corresponding rounding direction.

       The fegetround() function returns the macro corresponding to the
       current rounding mode.

       The fesetround() function sets the rounding mode as specified by
       its argument and returns zero when it was successful.

       C99 and POSIX.1-2008 specify an identifier, FLT_ROUNDS, defined in
       <float.h>, which indicates the implementation-defined rounding
       behavior for floating-point addition.  This identifier has one of
       the following values:

       -1     The rounding mode is not determinable.

       0      Rounding is toward 0.

       1      Rounding is toward nearest number.

       2      Rounding is toward positive infinity.

       3      Rounding is toward negative infinity.

       Other values represent machine-dependent, nonstandard rounding
       modes.

       The value of FLT_ROUNDS should reflect the current rounding mode
       as set by fesetround() (but see BUGS).

   Floating-point environment
       The entire floating-point environment, including control modes and
       status flags, can be handled as one opaque object, of type fenv_t.
       The default environment is denoted by FE_DFL_ENV (of type const
       fenv_t *).  This is the environment setup at program start and it
       is defined by ISO C to have round to nearest, all exceptions
       cleared and a nonstop (continue on exceptions) mode.

       The fegetenv() function saves the current floating-point
       environment in the object *envp.

       The feholdexcept() function does the same, then clears all
       exception flags, and sets a nonstop (continue on exceptions) mode,
       if available.  It returns zero when successful.

       The fesetenv() function restores the floating-point environment
       from the object *envp.  This object must be known to be valid, for
       example, the result of a call to fegetenv() or feholdexcept() or
       equal to FE_DFL_ENV.  This call does not raise exceptions.

       The feupdateenv() function installs the floating-point environment
       represented by the object *envp, except that currently raised
       exceptions are not cleared.  After calling this function, the
       raised exceptions will be a bitwise OR of those previously set
       with those in *envp.  As before, the object *envp must be known to
       be valid.

RETURN VALUE         top

       These functions return zero on success and nonzero if an error
       occurred.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌──────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │ Interface                            Attribute     Value   │
       ├──────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │ feclearexcept(), fegetexceptflag(),  │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       │ feraiseexcept(), fesetexceptflag(),  │               │         │
       │ fetestexcept(), fegetround(),        │               │         │
       │ fesetround(), fegetenv(),            │               │         │
       │ feholdexcept(), fesetenv(),          │               │         │
       │ feupdateenv(), feenableexcept(),     │               │         │
       │ fedisableexcept(), fegetexcept()     │               │         │
       └──────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

STANDARDS         top

       C11, POSIX.1-2008, IEC 60559 (IEC 559:1989), ANSI/IEEE 854.

HISTORY         top

       C99, POSIX.1-2001.  glibc 2.1.

NOTES         top

   glibc notes
       If possible, the GNU C Library defines a macro FE_NOMASK_ENV which
       represents an environment where every exception raised causes a
       trap to occur.  You can test for this macro using #ifdef.  It is
       defined only if _GNU_SOURCE is defined.  The C99 standard does not
       define a way to set individual bits in the floating-point mask,
       for example, to trap on specific flags.  Since glibc 2.2, glibc
       supports the functions feenableexcept() and fedisableexcept() to
       set individual floating-point traps, and fegetexcept() to query
       the state.

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <fenv.h>

       int feenableexcept(int excepts);
       int fedisableexcept(int excepts);
       int fegetexcept(void);

       The feenableexcept() and fedisableexcept() functions enable (dis‐
       able) traps for each of the exceptions represented by excepts and
       return the previous set of enabled exceptions when successful, and
       -1 otherwise.  The fegetexcept() function returns the set of all
       currently enabled exceptions.

BUGS         top

       C99 specifies that the value of FLT_ROUNDS should reflect changes
       to the current rounding mode, as set by fesetround().  Currently,
       this does not occur: FLT_ROUNDS always has the value 1.

SEE ALSO         top

       math_error(7)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
       user-space interface documentation) project.  Information about
       the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
       This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.10.tar.gz
       fetched from
       ⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on
       2025-02-02.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
       version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
       to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
       improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
       part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Linux man-pages 6.10            2024-07-23                        fenv(3)

Pages that refer to this page: execve(2)fenv_t(3type)fma(3)j0(3)lrint(3)lround(3)matherr(3)pthread_create(3)remainder(3)rint(3)round(3)__setfpucw(3)y0(3)math_error(7)