math_error(7) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

math_error(7)       Miscellaneous Information Manual       math_error(7)

NAME         top

       math_error - detecting errors from mathematical functions

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <math.h>
       #include <errno.h>
       #include <fenv.h>

DESCRIPTION         top

       When an error occurs, most library functions indicate this fact
       by returning a special value (e.g., -1 or NULL).  Because they
       typically return a floating-point number, the mathematical
       functions declared in <math.h> indicate an error using other
       mechanisms.  There are two error-reporting mechanisms: the older
       one sets errno; the newer one uses the floating-point exception
       mechanism (the use of feclearexcept(3) and fetestexcept(3), as
       outlined below) described in fenv(3).

       A portable program that needs to check for an error from a
       mathematical function should set errno to zero, and make the
       following call

           feclearexcept(FE_ALL_EXCEPT);

       before calling a mathematical function.

       Upon return from the mathematical function, if errno is nonzero,
       or the following call (see fenv(3)) returns nonzero

           fetestexcept(FE_INVALID | FE_DIVBYZERO | FE_OVERFLOW |
                        FE_UNDERFLOW);

       then an error occurred in the mathematical function.

       The error conditions that can occur for mathematical functions
       are described below.

   Domain error
       A domain error occurs when a mathematical function is supplied
       with an argument whose value falls outside the domain for which
       the function is defined (e.g., giving a negative argument to
       log(3)).  When a domain error occurs, math functions commonly
       return a NaN (though some functions return a different value in
       this case); errno is set to EDOM, and an "invalid" (FE_INVALID)
       floating-point exception is raised.

   Pole error
       A pole error occurs when the mathematical result of a function is
       an exact infinity (e.g., the logarithm of 0 is negative
       infinity).  When a pole error occurs, the function returns the
       (signed) value HUGE_VAL, HUGE_VALF, or HUGE_VALL, depending on
       whether the function result type is double, float, or long
       double.  The sign of the result is that which is mathematically
       correct for the function.  errno is set to ERANGE, and a "divide-
       by-zero" (FE_DIVBYZERO) floating-point exception is raised.

   Range error
       A range error occurs when the magnitude of the function result
       means that it cannot be represented in the result type of the
       function.  The return value of the function depends on whether
       the range error was an overflow or an underflow.

       A floating result overflows if the result is finite, but is too
       large to represented in the result type.  When an overflow
       occurs, the function returns the value HUGE_VAL, HUGE_VALF, or
       HUGE_VALL, depending on whether the function result type is
       double, float, or long double.  errno is set to ERANGE, and an
       "overflow" (FE_OVERFLOW) floating-point exception is raised.

       A floating result underflows if the result is too small to be
       represented in the result type.  If an underflow occurs, a
       mathematical function typically returns 0.0 (C99 says a function
       shall return "an implementation-defined value whose magnitude is
       no greater than the smallest normalized positive number in the
       specified type").  errno may be set to ERANGE, and an "underflow"
       (FE_UNDERFLOW) floating-point exception may be raised.

       Some functions deliver a range error if the supplied argument
       value, or the correct function result, would be subnormal.  A
       subnormal value is one that is nonzero, but with a magnitude that
       is so small that it can't be presented in normalized form (i.e.,
       with a 1 in the most significant bit of the significand).  The
       representation of a subnormal number will contain one or more
       leading zeros in the significand.

NOTES         top

       The math_errhandling identifier specified by C99 and POSIX.1 is
       not supported by glibc.  This identifier is supposed to indicate
       which of the two error-notification mechanisms (errno, exceptions
       retrievable via fetestexcept(3)) is in use.  The standards
       require that at least one be in use, but permit both to be
       available.  The current (glibc 2.8) situation under glibc is
       messy.  Most (but not all) functions raise exceptions on errors.
       Some also set errno.  A few functions set errno, but don't raise
       an exception.  A very few functions do neither.  See the
       individual manual pages for details.

       To avoid the complexities of using errno and fetestexcept(3) for
       error checking, it is often advised that one should instead check
       for bad argument values before each call.  For example, the
       following code ensures that log(3)'s argument is not a NaN and is
       not zero (a pole error) or less than zero (a domain error):

           double x, r;

           if (isnan(x) || islessequal(x, 0)) {
               /* Deal with NaN / pole error / domain error */
           }

           r = log(x);

       The discussion on this page does not apply to the complex
       mathematical functions (i.e., those declared by <complex.h>),
       which in general are not required to return errors by C99 and
       POSIX.1.

       The gcc(1) -fno-math-errno option causes the executable to employ
       implementations of some mathematical functions that are faster
       than the standard implementations, but do not set errno on error.
       (The gcc(1) -ffast-math option also enables -fno-math-errno.)  An
       error can still be tested for using fetestexcept(3).

SEE ALSO         top

       gcc(1), errno(3), fenv(3), fpclassify(3), INFINITY(3),
       isgreater(3), matherr(3), nan(3)

       info libc

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
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       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
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       man-pages@man7.org

Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                  math_error(7)

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