.\" Copyright 2004 Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>.
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH INFINITY 3 2023-03-30 "Linux man-pages 6.04"
.SH NAME
INFINITY, NAN, HUGE_VAL, HUGE_VALF, HUGE_VALL \- floating-point constants
.SH LIBRARY
Math library
.RI ( libm )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.BR "#define _ISOC99_SOURCE" "      /* See feature_test_macros(7) */"
.B #include <math.h>
.PP
.B INFINITY
.PP
.B NAN
.PP
.B HUGE_VAL
.B HUGE_VALF
.B HUGE_VALL
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The macro
.B INFINITY
expands to a
.I float
constant representing positive infinity.
.PP
The macro
.B NAN
expands to a
.I float
constant representing a quiet NaN
(when supported).
A
.I quiet
NaN is a NaN ("not-a-number") that does not raise exceptions
when it is used in arithmetic.
The opposite is a
.I signaling
NaN.
See IEC 60559:1989.
.PP
The macros
.BR HUGE_VAL ,
.BR HUGE_VALF ,
.B HUGE_VALL
expand to constants of types
.IR double ,
.IR float ,
and
.IR "long double" ,
respectively,
that represent a large positive value, possibly positive infinity.
.SH STANDARDS
C11.
.SH HISTORY
C99.
.PP
On a glibc system, the macro
.B HUGE_VAL
is always available.
Availability of the
.B NAN
macro can be tested using
.BR "#ifdef NAN" ,
and similarly for
.BR INFINITY ,
.BR HUGE_VALF ,
.BR HUGE_VALL .
They will be defined by
.I <math.h>
if
.B _ISOC99_SOURCE
or
.B _GNU_SOURCE
is defined, or
.B __STDC_VERSION__
is defined
and has a value not less than 199901L.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR fpclassify (3),
.BR math_error (7)