frexp(3) convert floating-point number to fractional

Other Alias

frexpf, frexpl

SYNOPSIS

#include <math.h>


double frexp(double x, int *exp);
float frexpf(float x, int *exp);
long double frexpl(long double x, int *exp);

Link with -lm.

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

frexpf(), frexpl():

_ISOC99_SOURCE || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
    || /* Since glibc 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
    || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

These functions are used to split the number x into a normalized fraction and an exponent which is stored in exp.

RETURN VALUE

These functions return the normalized fraction. If the argument x is not zero, the normalized fraction is x times a power of two, and its absolute value is always in the range 1/2 (inclusive) to 1 (exclusive), that is, [0.5,1).

If x is zero, then the normalized fraction is zero and zero is stored in exp.

If x is a NaN, a NaN is returned, and the value of *exp is unspecified.

If x is positive infinity (negative infinity), positive infinity (negative infinity) is returned, and the value of *exp is unspecified.

ERRORS

No errors occur.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
InterfaceAttributeValue
frexp(), frexpf(), frexpl() Thread safetyMT-Safe

CONFORMING TO

C99, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

The variant returning double also conforms to SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89.

EXAMPLE

The program below produces results such as the following:

$ ./a.out 2560
frexp(2560, &e) = 0.625: 0.625 * 2^12 = 2560
$ ./a.out -4
frexp(-4, &e) = -0.5: -0.5 * 2^3 = -4

Program source

#include <math.h>
#include <float.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    double x, r;
    int exp;
    x = strtod(argv[1], NULL);
    r = frexp(x, &exp);
    printf("frexp(%g, &e) = %g: %g * %d^%d = %g\n",
           x, r, r, FLT_RADIX, exp, x);
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.06 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.