fpclassify

Floating point number classification of Tcl values

literal type exactly as shown argument replace with your value ~~?optional?~~ may be omitted

Synopsis#

package require tcl 9.0

fpclassify value

Description#

The fpclassify command takes a floating point number, value, and returns one of the following strings that describe it:

zero#

value is a floating point zero.

subnormal#

value is the result of a gradual underflow.

normal#

value is an ordinary floating-point number (not zero, subnormal, infinite, nor NaN).

infinite#

value is a floating-point infinity.

nan#

value is Not-a-Number.

The fpclassify command throws an error if value is not a floating-point value and cannot be converted to one.

Example#

This shows how to check whether the result of a computation is numerically safe or not. (Note however that it does not guard against numerical errors; just against representational problems.)

set value [command-that-computes-a-value]
switch [fpclassify $value] {
    normal - zero {
        puts "Result is $value"
    }
    infinite {
        puts "Result is infinite"
    }
    subnormal {
        puts "Result is $value - WARNING! precision lost"
    }
    nan {
        puts "Computation completely failed"
    }
}

Standards#

This command depends on the fpclassify() C macro conforming to “ISO C99” (i.e., to ISO/IEC 9899:1999).

Copyright#

Copyright © 2018 Kevin B. Kenny <kennykb@acm.org>. All rights reserved

Keywords#

floating point