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Normalization Functions

The functions described in this section are primarily provided as a way to efficiently perform certain low-level manipulations on floating point numbers that are represented internally using a binary radix; see section Floating Point Representation Concepts. These functions are required to have equivalent behavior even if the representation does not use a radix of 2, but of course they are unlikely to be particularly efficient in those cases.

All these functions are declared in `math.h'.

Function: double frexp (double value, int *exponent)
The frexp function is used to split the number value into a normalized fraction and an exponent.

If the argument value is not zero, the return value is value times a power of two, and is always in the range 1/2 (inclusive) to 1 (exclusive). The corresponding exponent is stored in *exponent; the return value multiplied by 2 raised to this exponent equals the original number value.

For example, frexp (12.8, &exponent) returns 0.8 and stores 4 in exponent.

If value is zero, then the return value is zero and zero is stored in *exponent.

Function: double ldexp (double value, int exponent)
This function returns the result of multiplying the floating-point number value by 2 raised to the power exponent. (It can be used to reassemble floating-point numbers that were taken apart by frexp.)

For example, ldexp (0.8, 4) returns 12.8.

The following functions which come from BSD provide facilities equivalent to those of ldexp and frexp:

Function: double scalb (double value, int exponent)
The scalb function is the BSD name for ldexp.

Function: double logb (double x)
This BSD function returns the integer part of the base-2 logarithm of x, an integer value represented in type double. This is the highest integer power of 2 contained in x. The sign of x is ignored. For example, logb (3.5) is 1.0 and logb (4.0) is 2.0.

When 2 raised to this power is divided into x, it gives a quotient between 1 (inclusive) and 2 (exclusive).

If x is zero, the value is minus infinity (if the machine supports such a value), or else a very small number. If x is infinity, the value is infinity.

The value returned by logb is one less than the value that frexp would store into *exponent.

Function: double copysign (double value, double sign)
The copysign function returns a value whose absolute value is the same as that of value, and whose sign matches that of sign. This is a BSD function.


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