atan2 - Man Page

arc tangent function of two variables

Library

Math library (libm, -lm)

Synopsis

#include <math.h>

double atan2(double y, double x);
float atan2f(float y, float x);
long double atan2l(long double y, long double x);

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

atan2f(), atan2l():

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

Description

These functions calculate the principal value of the arc tangent of y/x, using the signs of the two arguments to determine the quadrant of the result.

Return Value

On success, these functions return the principal value of the arc tangent of y/x in radians; the return value is in the range [-pi, pi].

If y is +0 (-0) and x is less than 0, +pi (-pi) is returned.

If y is +0 (-0) and x is greater than 0, +0 (-0) is returned.

If y is less than 0 and x is +0 or -0, -pi/2 is returned.

If y is greater than 0 and x is +0 or -0, pi/2 is returned.

If either x or y is NaN, a NaN is returned.

If y is +0 (-0) and x is -0, +pi (-pi) is returned.

If y is +0 (-0) and x is +0, +0 (-0) is returned.

If y is a finite value greater (less) than 0, and x is negative infinity, +pi (-pi) is returned.

If y is a finite value greater (less) than 0, and x is positive infinity, +0 (-0) is returned.

If y is positive infinity (negative infinity), and x is finite, pi/2 (-pi/2) is returned.

If y is positive infinity (negative infinity) and x is negative infinity, +3*pi/4 (-3*pi/4) is returned.

If y is positive infinity (negative infinity) and x is positive infinity, +pi/4 (-pi/4) is returned.

Errors

No errors occur.

Attributes

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

InterfaceAttributeValue
atan2(), atan2f(), atan2l()Thread safetyMT-Safe

Standards

C11, POSIX.1-2008.

History

C99, POSIX.1-2001.

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

See Also

acos(3), asin(3), atan(3), carg(3), cos(3), sin(3), tan(3)

Referenced By

acos(3), asin(3), atan(3), cos(3), perlfunc(1), sin(3), tan(3), unu-2op(1).

The man pages atan2f(3) and atan2l(3) are aliases of atan2(3).

2023-10-31 Linux man-pages 6.7