atan2f(3)

atan2f3

Arc tangent function of two variables

Part of atan2(3).

Usage

#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

Library

Math library (libm, -lm)

Overview

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

Releases

12 releases since Debian 3.1 (Sarge); the text changed 11 times.

  1. 3.1
  2. 4.0
  3. 5.0
  4. 6.0
  5. 7
  6. 8
  7. 9
  8. 10
  9. 11
  10. 12
  11. 13
  12. Arch

Standards

C11, POSIX.1-2008.

History

C99, POSIX.1-2001.

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

From man-pages 6.19-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.