NAME¶

std::isnan - std::isnan

Synopsis¶

Defined in header <cmath>
bool isnan( float num );
(since C++11)
bool isnan( double num ); (until C++23)

bool isnan( long double num );
constexpr bool isnan( /* floating-point-type */ num (1) (since C++23)
);
Additional overloads
Defined in header <cmath>
template< class Integer > (A) (since C++11)
bool isnan( Integer num ); (constexpr since C++23)

1) Determines if the given floating point number num is a not-a-number (NaN) value.
The library provides overloads for all cv-unqualified floating-point types as the
type of the parameter num.
(since C++23)
A) Additional overloads are provided for all integer types, which are treated as
double.

Parameters¶

num - floating-point or integer value

Return value¶

true if num is a NaN, false otherwise.

Notes¶

There are many different NaN values with different sign bits and payloads, see
std::nan and std::numeric_limits::quiet_NaN.

NaN values never compare equal to themselves or to other NaN values. Copying a NaN
is not required, by IEEE-754, to preserve its bit representation (sign and payload),
though most implementation do.

Another way to test if a floating-point value is NaN is to compare it with itself:
bool is_nan(double x) { return x != x; }.

GCC and Clang support a -ffinite-math option (additionally implied by -ffast-math),
which allows the respective compiler to assume the nonexistence of special IEEE-754
floating point values such as NaN, infinity, or negative zero. In other words,
std::isnan is assumed to always return false under this option.

The additional overloads are not required to be provided exactly as (A). They only
need to be sufficient to ensure that for their argument num of integer type,
std::isnan(num) has the same effect as std::isnan(static_cast<double>(num)).

Example¶

// Run this code

#include <cfloat>
#include <cmath>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
std::cout << std::boolalpha
<< "isnan(NaN) = " << std::isnan(NAN) << '\n'
<< "isnan(Inf) = " << std::isnan(INFINITY) << '\n'
<< "isnan(0.0) = " << std::isnan(0.0) << '\n'
<< "isnan(DBL_MIN/2.0) = " << std::isnan(DBL_MIN / 2.0) << '\n'
<< "isnan(0.0 / 0.0) = " << std::isnan(0.0 / 0.0) << '\n'
<< "isnan(Inf - Inf) = " << std::isnan(INFINITY - INFINITY) << '\n';
}

Output:¶

isnan(NaN) = true
isnan(Inf) = false
isnan(0.0) = false
isnan(DBL_MIN/2.0) = false
isnan(0.0 / 0.0) = true
isnan(Inf - Inf) = true

See also¶

nan
nanf
nanl not-a-number (NaN)
(C++11) (function)
(C++11)
(C++11)
fpclassify categorizes the given floating-point value
(C++11) (function)
isfinite checks if the given number has finite value
(C++11) (function)
isinf checks if the given number is infinite
(C++11) (function)
isnormal checks if the given number is normal
(C++11) (function)
isunordered checks if two floating-point values are unordered
(C++11) (function)
C documentation for
isnan