float.h(7POSIX) POSIX Programmer's Manual float.h(7POSIX)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of
this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of
Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
float.h — floating types
SYNOPSIS
#include <float.h>
DESCRIPTION
The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any
conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional.
This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 defers to the ISO C standard.
The characteristics of floating types are defined in terms of a model that describes a
representation of floating-point numbers and values that provide information about an
implementation's floating-point arithmetic.
The following parameters are used to define the model for each floating-point type:
s Sign (±1).
b Base or radix of exponent representation (an integer >1).
e Exponent (an integer between a minimum e_min and a maximum e_max).
p Precision (the number of base−b digits in the significand).
f_k Non-negative integers less than b (the significand digits).
A floating-point number x is defined by the following model:
x = sb^e kΣ1 f_k b^ −k, e_min ≤ e ≤ e_max
In addition to normalized floating-point numbers (f_1>0 if x≠0), floating types may be
able to contain other kinds of floating-point numbers, such as subnormal floating-point
numbers (x≠0, e=e_min, f_1=0) and unnormalized floating-point numbers (x≠0, e>e_min,
f_1=0), and values that are not floating-point numbers, such as infinities and NaNs. A NaN
is an encoding signifying Not-a-Number. A quiet NaN propagates through almost every arith‐
metic operation without raising a floating-point exception; a signaling NaN generally
raises a floating-point exception when occurring as an arithmetic operand.
An implementation may give zero and non-numeric values, such as infinities and NaNs, a
sign, or may leave them unsigned. Wherever such values are unsigned, any requirement in
POSIX.1‐2008 to retrieve the sign shall produce an unspecified sign and any requirement to
set the sign shall be ignored.
The accuracy of the floating-point operations ('+', '−', '*', '/') and of the functions in
<math.h> and <complex.h> that return floating-point results is implementation-defined, as
is the accuracy of the conversion between floating-point internal representations and
string representations performed by the functions in <stdio.h>, <stdlib.h>, and <wchar.h>.
The implementation may state that the accuracy is unknown.
All integer values in the <float.h> header, except FLT_ROUNDS, shall be constant expres‐
sions suitable for use in #if preprocessing directives; all floating values shall be con‐
stant expressions. All except DECIMAL_DIG, FLT_EVAL_METHOD, FLT_RADIX, and FLT_ROUNDS have
separate names for all three floating-point types. The floating-point model representation
is provided for all values except FLT_EVAL_METHOD and FLT_ROUNDS.
The rounding mode for floating-point addition is characterized by the implementation-
defined value of FLT_ROUNDS:
−1 Indeterminable.
0 Toward zero.
1 To nearest.
2 Toward positive infinity.
3 Toward negative infinity.
All other values for FLT_ROUNDS characterize implementation-defined rounding behavior.
The values of operations with floating operands and values subject to the usual arithmetic
conversions and of floating constants are evaluated to a format whose range and precision
may be greater than required by the type. The use of evaluation formats is characterized
by the implementation-defined value of FLT_EVAL_METHOD:
−1 Indeterminable.
0 Evaluate all operations and constants just to the range and precision of the type.
1 Evaluate operations and constants of type float and double to the range and preci‐
sion of the double type; evaluate long double operations and constants to the range
and precision of the long double type.
2 Evaluate all operations and constants to the range and precision of the long double
type.
All other negative values for FLT_EVAL_METHOD characterize implementation-defined behav‐
ior.
The <float.h> header shall define the following values as constant expressions with imple‐
mentation-defined values that are greater or equal in magnitude (absolute value) to those
shown, with the same sign.
* Radix of exponent representation, b.
FLT_RADIX 2
* Number of base-FLT_RADIX digits in the floating-point significand, p.
FLT_MANT_DIG
DBL_MANT_DIG
LDBL_MANT_DIG
* Number of decimal digits, n, such that any floating-point number in the widest sup‐
ported floating type with p_max radix b digits can be rounded to a floating-point num‐
ber with n decimal digits and back again without change to the value.
p_max log_10 b if b is a power of 10
⎡ 1 + p_max log_10 b⎤ otherwise
DECIMAL_DIG 10
* Number of decimal digits, q, such that any floating-point number with q decimal digits
can be rounded into a floating-point number with p radix b digits and back again with‐
out change to the q decimal digits.
p log_10 b if b is a power of 10
⎣ (p − 1) log_10 b ⎦ otherwise
FLT_DIG 6
DBL_DIG 10
LDBL_DIG 10
* Minimum negative integer such that FLT_RADIX raised to that power minus 1 is a normal‐
ized floating-point number, e_min.
FLT_MIN_EXP
DBL_MIN_EXP
LDBL_MIN_EXP
* Minimum negative integer such that 10 raised to that power is in the range of normal‐
ized floating-point numbers.
⎡ log_10 b^ e_min ^ −1 ⎤
FLT_MIN_10_EXP
−37
DBL_MIN_10_EXP
−37
LDBL_MIN_10_EXP
−37
* Maximum integer such that FLT_RADIX raised to that power minus 1 is a representable
finite floating-point number, e_max.
FLT_MAX_EXP
DBL_MAX_EXP
LDBL_MAX_EXP
Additionally, FLT_MAX_EXP shall be at least as large as FLT_MANT_DIG, DBL_MAX_EXP
shall be at least as large as DBL_MANT_DIG, and LDBL_MAX_EXP shall be at least as
large as LDBL_MANT_DIG; which has the effect that FLT_MAX, DBL_MAX, and LDBL_MAX are
integral.
* Maximum integer such that 10 raised to that power is in the range of representable
finite floating-point numbers.
⎣ log_10 ((1 − b^ −p) b^e _max ) ⎦
FLT_MAX_10_EXP
+37
DBL_MAX_10_EXP
+37
LDBL_MAX_10_EXP
+37
The <float.h> header shall define the following values as constant expressions with imple‐
mentation-defined values that are greater than or equal to those shown:
* Maximum representable finite floating-point number.
(1 − b^ −p) b^e _max
FLT_MAX 1E+37
DBL_MAX 1E+37
LDBL_MAX 1E+37
The <float.h> header shall define the following values as constant expressions with imple‐
mentation-defined (positive) values that are less than or equal to those shown:
* The difference between 1 and the least value greater than 1 that is representable in
the given floating-point type, b^ 1 − p.
FLT_EPSILON 1E−5
DBL_EPSILON 1E−9
LDBL_EPSILON 1E−9
* Minimum normalized positive floating-point number, b^ e_min ^ −1.
FLT_MIN 1E−37
DBL_MIN 1E−37
LDBL_MIN 1E−37
The following sections are informative.
RATIONALE
All known hardware floating-point formats satisfy the property that the exponent range is
larger than the number of mantissa digits. The ISO C standard permits a floating-point
format where this property is not true, such that the largest finite value would not be
integral; however, it is unlikely that there will ever be hardware support for such a
floating-point format, and it introduces boundary cases that portable programs should not
have to be concerned with (for example, a non-integral DBL_MAX means that ceil() would
have to worry about overflow). Therefore, this standard imposes an additional requirement
that the largest representable finite value is integral.
SEE ALSO
<complex.h>, <math.h>, <stdio.h>, <stdlib.h>, <wchar.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the event of any discrep‐
ancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 float.h(7POSIX)