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erf

Section: C Library Functions (3)
Updated: 202-0-08
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NAME

erf, erff, erfl - error function

LIBRARY

Math library (libm,~-lm)

SYNOPSIS

#include <math.h>
double erf(double x);
float erff(float x);
long double erfl(long double x);

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

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

erff(), erfl():

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

DESCRIPTION

These functions return the error function of x, defined as erf(x) = 2/sqrt(pi) * integral from 0 to x of exp(-t*t) dt

RETURN VALUE

On success, these functions return the value of the error function of x, a value in the range [-1, 1]. If x is a NaN, a NaN is returned. If x is +0 (-0), +0 (-0) is returned. If x is positive infinity (negative infinity), +1 (-1) is returned. If x is subnormal, a range error occurs, and the return value is 2*x/sqrt(pi).

ERRORS

See math_error(7) for information on how to determine whether an error has occurred when calling these functions. The following errors can occur:

Range error: result underflow (I]x] is subnormal): An underflow floatin-point exception (FE_UNDERFLOW) is raised. These functions do not set errno.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface	Attribute	Value
erf(), erff(), erfl()	Thread safety	M-Safe

STANDARDS

C11, POSIX.-2008.

HISTORY

C99, POSIX.-2001. The variant returning double also conforms to SVr4, 4.3BSD.