NAN

 

C

Language

headers

Type support

Dynamic memory management

Error handling

Program utilities

Variadic function support

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Thread support (C11)

Atomic operations (C11)

Technical Specifications

 

Numerics

Common mathematical functions

Floating-point environment

Complex number arithmetics

Random number generation

Type-generic math

 

Common mathematical functions

Functions
Basic operations
abslabsllabsimaxabs (C99) fabs divldivlldivimaxdiv (C99) fmod	remainder (C99) remquo (C99) fma (C99) fmax (C99) fmin (C99) fdim (C99) nannanfnanl (C99)(C99)(C99)
Exponential functions
exp exp2 (C99) expm1 (C99)	log log10 log1p (C99) log2 (C99)
Power functions
sqrt cbrt (C99)	hypot (C99) pow
Trigonometric and hyperbolic functions
sin cos tan asin acos atan atan2	sinh cosh tanh asinh (C99) acosh (C99) atanh (C99)
Error and gamma functions
erf (C99) erfc (C99)	lgamma (C99) tgamma (C99)
Nearest integer floating point operations
ceil floor roundlroundllround (C99)(C99)(C99)	trunc (C99) nearbyint (C99) rintlrintllrint (C99)(C99)(C99)
Floating point manipulation functions
ldexp scalbnscalbln (C99)(C99) ilogb (C99) logb (C99)	frexp modf nextafternexttoward (C99)(C99) copysign (C99)
Classification
fpclassify (C99) isfinite (C99) isinf (C99) isnan (C99) isnormal (C99) signbit (C99)	isgreater (C99) isgreaterequal (C99) isless (C99) islessequal (C99) islessgreater (C99) isunordered (C99)
Types
div_tldiv_tlldiv_timaxdiv_t (C99)(C99)	float_tdouble_t (C99)(C99)
Macro constants
HUGE_VALFHUGE_VALHUGE_VALL (C99)(C99) FP_FAST_FMAFFP_FAST_FMAFP_FAST_FMAL (C99)(C99)(C99) math_errhandlingMATH_ERRNOMATH_ERRNOEXCEPT (C99)(C99)(C99)	INFINITY (C99) NAN (C99) FP_ILOGB0FP_ILOGBNAN (C99)(C99) FP_NORMALFP_SUBNORMALFP_ZEROFP_INFINITEFP_NAN (C99)(C99)(C99)(C99)(C99)

 

Defined in header <math.h>
#define NAN /*implementation defined*/		(since C99)

The macro NAN expands to constant expression of type float which evaluates to a quiet not-a-number (QNaN) value. If the implementation does not support QNaNs, this macro constant is not defined.

The style used to print a NaN is implementation defined.

Notes

There are many different NaN values, differentiated by their payloads and their sign bits. The contents of the payload and the sign bit of the NaN generated by the macro NAN are implementation-defined.

Example

Show style used to print a NaN and IEEE format.

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
#include <string.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    double f = NAN;
    uint64_t fn; memcpy(&fn, &f, sizeof f);
    printf("NAN:   %f %" PRIx64 "\n", f, fn);
}

Possible output:

NAN:   nan 7ff8000000000000

References

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 7.12/5 NAN (p: 232)

• F.10/11/13 NAN (p: 518)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 7.12/5 NAN (p: 213)

• F.9/11/13 NAN (p: 455)

See also

nannanfnanl (C99)(C99)(C99)	returns a NaN (not-a-number) (function)
isnan (C99)	checks if the given number is NaN (function)
C++ documentation for NAN