NAME

atan, atanf, atanl — arc tangent function

SYNOPSIS

#include <math.h>

double atan(double x);
float atanf(float x);
long double atanl(long double x);


DESCRIPTION

^[CX] The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2024 defers to the ISO C standard.

These functions shall compute the principal value of the arc tangent of their argument x.

An application wishing to check for error situations should set errno to zero and call feclearexcept(FE_ALL_EXCEPT) before calling these functions. On return, if errno is non-zero or fetestexcept(FE_INVALID | FE_DIVBYZERO | FE_OVERFLOW | FE_UNDERFLOW) is non-zero, an error has occurred.

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion, these functions shall return the arc tangent of x in the range [-ℼ/2,ℼ/2] radians.

^[MX] If x is NaN, a NaN shall be returned.

If x is ±0, x shall be returned.

If x is ±Inf, ±ℼ/2 shall be returned.

^[MXX] If x is subnormal, x should be returned.
^[MX] If x is subnormal, a range error may occur and, if x is not returned, atan(), atanf(), and atanl() shall return an implementation-defined value no greater in magnitude than DBL_MIN, FLT_MIN, and LDBL_MIN, respectively.

ERRORS

These functions may fail if:

Range Error

^[MX] The value of x is subnormal.

If the integer expression (math_errhandling & MATH_ERRNO) is non-zero, then errno shall be set to [ERANGE]. If the integer expression (math_errhandling & MATH_ERREXCEPT) is non-zero, then the underflow floating-point exception shall be raised.

EXAMPLES

None.

APPLICATION USAGE

On error, the expressions (math_errhandling & MATH_ERRNO) and (math_errhandling & MATH_ERREXCEPT) are independent of each other, but at least one of them must be non-zero.

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

atan2 , feclearexcept , fetestexcept , isnan , tan

XBD 4.23 Treatment of Error Conditions for Mathematical Functions , <math.h>

CHANGE HISTORY

First released in Issue 1. Derived from Issue 1 of the SVID.

Issue 5

The DESCRIPTION is updated to indicate how an application should check for an error. This text was previously published in the APPLICATION USAGE section.

Issue 6

The atanf() and atanl() functions are added for alignment with the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard.

The DESCRIPTION, RETURN VALUE, ERRORS, and APPLICATION USAGE sections are revised to align with the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard.

IEC 60559:1989 standard floating-point extensions over the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard are marked.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XSH/TC1-2008/0037 [68] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1382 is applied, rearranging the text describing the behavior when x is subnormal to avoid the need for two shading changes.