xref: /freebsd/lib/msun/man/nan.3 (revision eda14cbc264d6969b02f2b1994cef11148e914f1)
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25.\" $FreeBSD$
26.\"
27.Dd December 16, 2007
28.Dt NAN 3
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm nan ,
32.Nm nanf ,
33.Nm nanl
34.Nd quiet \*(Nas
35.Sh LIBRARY
36.Lb libm
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.In math.h
39.Ft double
40.Fn nan "const char *s"
41.Ft float
42.Fn nanf "const char *s"
43.Ft long double
44.Fn nanl "const char *s"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Dv NAN
48macro expands to a quiet \*(Na (Not A Number).
49Similarly, each of the
50.Fn nan ,
51.Fn nanf ,
52and
53.Fn nanl
54functions generate a quiet \*(Na value without raising an invalid exception.
55The argument
56.Fa s
57should point to either an empty string or a hexadecimal representation
58of a non-negative integer (e.g., "0x1234".)
59In the latter case, the integer is encoded in some free bits in the
60representation of the \*(Na, which sometimes store
61machine-specific information about why a particular \*(Na was generated.
62There are 22 such bits available for
63.Vt float
64variables, 51 bits for
65.Vt double
66variables, and at least 51 bits for a
67.Vt long double .
68If
69.Fa s
70is improperly formatted or represents an integer that is too large,
71then the particular encoding of the quiet \*(Na that is returned
72is indeterminate.
73.Sh COMPATIBILITY
74Calling these functions with a non-empty string isn't portable.
75Another operating system may translate the string into a different
76\*(Na encoding, and furthermore, the meaning of a given \*(Na encoding
77varies across machine architectures.
78If you understood the innards of a particular platform well enough to
79know what string to use, then you would have no need for these functions
80anyway, so don't use them.
81Use the
82.Dv NAN
83macro instead.
84.Sh SEE ALSO
85.Xr fenv 3 ,
86.Xr ieee 3 ,
87.Xr isnan 3 ,
88.Xr math 3 ,
89.Xr strtod 3
90.Sh STANDARDS
91The
92.Fn nan ,
93.Fn nanf ,
94and
95.Fn nanl
96functions and the
97.Dv NAN
98macro conform to
99.St -isoC-99 .
100