How to use nan and inf in C?

Question

I have a numerical method that could return nan or inf if there was an error, and for testing purposed I'd like to temporarily force it to return nan or inf to ensure the situation is being handled correctly. Is there a reliable, compiler-independent way to create values of nan and inf in C?

After googling for about 10 minutes I've only been able to find complier dependent solutions.

Answer 1

There is no compiler independent way of doing this, as neither the C (nor the C++) standards say that the floating point math types must support NAN or INF.

Edit: I just checked the wording of the C++ standard, and it says that these functions (members of the templated class numeric_limits):

quiet_NaN() 
signalling_NaN()

wiill return NAN representations "if available". It doesn't expand on what "if available" means, but presumably something like "if the implementation's FP rep supports them". Similarly, there is a function:

infinity()

which returns a positive INF rep "if available".

These are both defined in the <limits> header - I would guess that the C standard has something similar (probably also "if available") but I don't have a copy of the current C99 standard.

Answer 2

A compiler independent way, but not processor independent way to get these:

int inf = 0x7F800000;
return *(float*)&inf;

int nan = 0x7F800001;
return *(float*)&nan;

This should work on any processor which uses the IEEE 754 floating point format (which x86 does).

UPDATE: Tested and updated.

Answer 3

I'm also surprised these aren't compile time constants. But I suppose you could create these values easily enough by simply executing an instruction that returns such an invalid result. Dividing by 0, log of 0, tan of 90, that kinda thing.

Answer 4

You can test if your implementation has it:

#include <math.h>
#ifdef NAN
/* NAN is supported */
#endif
#ifdef INFINITY
/* INFINITY is supported */
#endif

The existence of INFINITY is guaranteed by C99 (or the latest draft at least), and "expands to a constant expression of type float representing positive or unsigned infinity, if available; else to a positive constant of type float that overflows at translation time."

NAN may or may not be defined, and "is defined if and only if the implementation supports quiet NaNs for the float type. It expands to a constant expression of type float representing a quiet NaN."

Note that if you're comparing floating point values, and do:

a = NAN;

even then,

a == NAN;

is false. One way to check for NaN would be:

#include <math.h>
if (isnan(a)) { ... }

You can also do: a != a to test if a is NaN.

There is also isfinite(), isinf(), isnormal(), and signbit() macros in math.h in C99.

C99 also has nan functions:

#include <math.h>
double nan(const char *tagp);
float nanf(const char *tagp);
long double nanl(ocnst char *tagp);

(Reference: n1256).

Answer 5

This functions in both float and double:

double NAN = 0.0/0.0

double POS_INF = 1.0 /0.0

double NEG_INF = -1.0/0.0;

Edit: As someone already said, the old IEEE standard said that such values should raise traps. But the new compilers almost always switch the traps off and return the given values because trapping interferes with error handling.