.\" Copyright (C) 2021 Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH MAX 3 2023-03-30 "Linux man-pages 6.04"
.SH NAME
MAX, MIN \- maximum or minimum of two values
.SH LIBRARY
Standard C library
.RI ( libc ", " \-lc )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <sys/param.h>
.PP
.BI MAX( a ", " b );
.BI MIN( a ", " b );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
These macros return the maximum or minimum of
.I a
and
.IR b .
.SH RETURN VALUE
These macros return the value of one of their arguments,
possibly converted to a different type (see BUGS).
.SH ERRORS
These macros may raise the "invalid" floating-point exception
when any of the arguments is NaN.
.SH STANDARDS
GNU, BSD.
.SH NOTES
If either of the arguments is of a floating-point type,
you might prefer to use
.BR fmax (3)
or
.BR fmin (3),
which can handle NaN.
.PP
The arguments may be evaluated more than once, or not at all.
.PP
Some UNIX systems might provide these macros in a different header,
or not at all.
.SH BUGS
Due to the usual arithmetic conversions,
the result of these macros may be very different from either of the arguments.
To avoid this, ensure that both arguments have the same type.
.SH EXAMPLES
.\" SRC BEGIN (MAX.c)
.EX
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/param.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int a, b, x;

    if (argc != 3) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <num> <num>\en", argv[0]);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    a = atoi(argv[1]);
    b = atoi(argv[2]);
    x = MAX(a, b);
    printf("MAX(%d, %d) is %d\en", a, b, x);

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
.EE
.\" SRC END
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR fmax (3),
.BR fmin (3)