|C H A P T E R 3|
The Math Libraries
This chapter describes the math libraries provided with the Solaris OS and Sun Studio 10. Besides listing each of the libraries along with its contents, this chapter discusses some of the features supported by the math libraries provided with the compiler collection, including IEEE supporting functions, random number generators, and functions that convert data between IEEE and non-IEEE formats.
The contents of the libm and libsunmath libraries are also listed on the Intro(3M) man page.
This section describes the math libraries that are bundled with the Solaris 10 OS. These libraries are provided as shared objects and are installed in the standard location for Solaris libraries.
The Solaris standard math library, libm, contains elementary mathematical functions and support routines required by the various standards to which the Solaris operating environment conforms.
The Solaris 10 OS includes two versions of libm: libm.so.1 and libm.so.2. libm.so.1 provides the functions required by those standards supported by the Solaris 9 OS and earlier versions. libm.so.2 provides the functions required by those standards supported by the Solaris 10 OS (including C99). libm.so.1 is provided for backward compatibility so that programs compiled and linked on the Solaris 9 OS and earlier systems will continue to run unchanged. The contents of libm.so.1 are documented in the section 3M man pages on those systems. The remainder of this chapter refers to libm.so.2. See the ld(1) and compiler manual pages for more information about dynamic linking and the options and environment variables that determine which shared objects are loaded when a program is run.
TABLE 3-1 lists the functions in libm. For each mathematical function, the table gives only the name of the double precision version of the function. The library also contains a single precision version having the same name followed by an f and an extended/quadruple precision version having the same name followed by an l.
Notes on TABLE 3-1:
1. The functions gamma_r and lgamma_r are reentrant versions of gamma and lgamma.
2. The functions fegetprec and fesetprec are only available on x86 systems. These functions are not specified by the C99 standard.
3. Error bounds and observed errors for the transcendental functions in libm are tabulated on the libm(3LIB) man page.
The library libmvec provides routines that evaluate common mathematical functions for an entire vector of arguments. An application may invoke the routines in libmvec explicitly, or the compiler may invoke these routines when the -xvector flag is used.
libmvec is implemented as a primary shared object, libmvec.so.1, and several auxiliary shared objects that provide alternate versions of some or all of the vector functions. When a program linked with libmvec is run, the runtime linker automatically selects the version that offers the best performance on the host platform. For this reason, a program that uses the functions in libmvec may deliver slightly different results when run on different systems.
TABLE 3-2 lists the functions in libmvec.
This section describes the math libraries that are included with the Sun Studio 10 compilers. Except as noted, these libraries are provided as static archives. By default, they are installed in the directory
Libraries that are optimized for processors implementing particular instruction set variants are installed in subdirectories of the form
Here <arch> is the name of the instruction set variant. On SPARC based systems, these directories include v7, v8, v8a, v8plus, v8plusa, v8plusb, v9, v9a, and v9b. On x86 systems, these directories include f80387 and amd64.
The directory /opt/SUNWspro/lib/ contains symbolic links to all Sun Studio math libraries that are provided as shared objects.
Header files for Sun Studio math libraries are installed in the directory /opt/SUNWspro/prod/include/ and subdirectories therein.
The libsunmath math library contains functions that are not specified by any standard but are useful in numerical software. It also contains many of the functions that are in libm.so.2 but not in libm.so.1. libsunmath is provided as both a shared object and a static archive.
TABLE 3-3 lists the functions in libsunmath that are not in libm.so.2. For each mathematical function, the table gives only the name of the double precision version of the function as it would be called from a C program.
i_addran_, i_addrans_, i_init_addrans_, i_get_addrans_, i_set_addrans_, r_addran_, r_addrans_, r_init_addrans_, r_get_addrans_, r_set_addrans_, d_addran_, d_addrans_, d_init_addrans_, d_get_addrans_, d_set_addrans_, u_addrans_
i_mwcran_, i_mwcrans_, i_init_mwcrans_, i_get_mwcrans_, i_set_mwcrans, i_lmwcran_, i_lmwcrans_, i_llmwcran_, i_llmwcrans_, u_mwcran_, u_mwcrans_, u_lmwcran_, u_lmwcrans, u_llmwcran_, u_llmwcrans_, r_mwcran_, r_mwcrans_, d_mwcran_, d_mwcrans_, smwcran_
The libmopt library provides faster versions of some of the functions in libm and libsunmath. On SPARC based systems, the libcopt library provides faster versions of a few of the routines in libc. Both of these libraries are provided as static archives only.
The routines contained in libmopt replace corresponding routines in libm. Typically, the libmopt versions are noticeably faster. Unlike the libm versions, however, which support any of ANSI/POSIX®, SVID, X/Open, or C99/IEEE-style treatment of exceptional cases, the libmopt routines only support C99/IEEE-style handling of these cases. (See Appendix E.) Also, while all mathematical functions in libm deliver results with reasonable accuracy regardless of the floating point rounding direction mode, the result of calling any function in libmopt with a rounding direction other than round-to-nearest is undefined. A program that uses libmopt must ensure that the default round-to-nearest mode is in effect whenever any standard math function is called. To link a program with libmopt, use the -xlibmopt flag.
The routines contained in libcopt are not called directly by the user. Instead, they replace support routines in libc that are used by the compiler. These support routines are no longer needed on current SPARC based systems. libcopt is provided solely to improve the performance of precompiled programs that were optimized for earlier SPARC processors. To link a program with libcopt, use the -lcopt flag.
On SPARC based systems, the library libcx contains slightly faster versions of the 128-bit quadruple precision floating point arithmetic support routines in libc. These routines are not called directly by the user. They are used by the compiler in programs that perform arithmetic on quadruple precision (long double or REAL*16) data. libcx is provided as both a static archive and a shared object.
The quadruple precision support routines in libcx are nearly identical to those in libc. The libcx versions have been optimized for specific instruction set variants. Programs that use quadruple precision extensively may run slightly faster provided they are linked with the appropriate variant of libcx. To link a program with libcx, use the -lcx flag and specify the instruction set variant for which the program is intended using the -xarch flag.
A shared version of libcx, called libcx.so.1, is also provided. This version can be preloaded at run time by setting the environment variable LD_PRELOAD to the full path name of the libcx.so.1 file. For best performance, use the appropriate version of libcx.so.1 for your system's architecture. For example, on an UltraSPARC® based system, assuming the library is installed in the default location, set LD_PRELOAD as follows:
setenv LD_PRELOAD /opt/SUNWspro/lib/v8plus/libcx.so.1
On SPARC based systems, the Sun Studio math libraries include two static archive versions of libmvec. These libraries provide the same functions as the Solaris libmvec. The static archive libraries are provided so that applications that use the vector functions can run on systems running the Solaris 9 or earlier operating environments. Applications that need only run on Solaris 10 systems should use the Solaris libmvec.
libmvec.a provides single-thread vector functions identical to those in the Solaris libmvec.so.1. To link with libmvec.a, use the -lmvec flag. libmvec_mt.a provides multi-thread versions of the vector functions that rely on multiprocessor parallelization. To use libmvec_mt.a, you must link with both -xparallel and -lmvec_mt.
See the libmvec(3m) and clibmvec(3m) manual pages for more information.
The libm9x math library contains the C99 <fenv.h> Floating-Point Environment functions as well as enhancements to support improved handling of floating-point exceptions. In the Solaris 10 OS, the contents of libm9x have been incorporated into libm. libm9x is still provided for applications that run on earlier versions of the Solaris OS. Applications that need only run on Solaris 10 systems should use libm.
Most numerical functions are available in single, double, and extended (x86) or quadruple precision (SPARC). Examples of calling different precision versions of various functions from different languages are shown in TABLE 3-4.
In C, names of single precision functions are formed by appending f to the double precision name, and names of extended or quadruple precision functions are formed by adding l. Because Fortran calling conventions differ, libsunmath provides r_..., d_..., and q_... functions for single, double, and quadruple precision, respectively. Fortran intrinsic functions can be called by the generic name for all three precisions.
Not all functions have q_... versions. Refer to math.h and sunmath.h for names and definitions of libm and libsunmath functions.
In Fortran programs, remember to declare r_... functions as real, d_... functions as double precision, and q_... functions as REAL*16. Otherwise, type mismatches might result.
This section describes the IEEE recommended functions, the functions that supply useful values, ieee_flags, ieee_retrospective, and standard_arithmetic and nonstandard_arithmetic. Refer to Chapter 4 for more information on the functions ieee_flags and ieee_handler.
The functions described by ieee_functions(3m) and ieee_sun(3m) provide capabilities either required by the IEEE standard or recommended in its appendix. These are implemented as efficient bit mask operations.
The remainder(x,y) is the operation specified in IEEE Standard 754-1985. The difference between remainder(x,y) and fmod(x,y) is that the sign of the result returned by remainder(x,y) might not agree with the sign of either x or y, whereas fmod(x,y) always returns a result whose sign agrees with x. Both functions return exact results and do not generate inexact exceptions.
IEEE values like infinity, NaN, maximum and minimum positive floating-point numbers are provided by the functions described by the ieee_values(3m) man page. TABLE 3-9, TABLE 3-10, TABLE 3-11, and TABLE 3-12 show the decimal values and hexadecimal IEEE representations of the values provided by ieee_values(3m) functions.
ieee_flags (3m) is the Sun interface to:
The syntax for a call to ieee_flags(3m) is:
i = ieee_flags(action, mode, in, out);
The ASCII strings that are the possible values for the parameters are shown in TABLE 3-13:
The ieee_flags(3m) man page describes the parameters in complete detail.
Some of the arithmetic features that can be modified by using ieee_flags are covered in the following paragraphs. Chapter 4 contains more information on ieee_flags and IEEE exception flags.
When mode is direction, the specified action applies to the current rounding direction. The possible rounding directions are: round towards nearest, round towards zero, round towards +, or round towards -. The IEEE default rounding direction is round towards nearest. This means that when the mathematical result of an operation lies strictly between two adjacent representable numbers, the one nearest to the mathematical result is delivered. (If the mathematical result lies exactly halfway between the two nearest representable numbers, then the result delivered is the one whose least significant bit is zero. The round towards nearest mode is sometimes called round to nearest even to emphasize this.)
Rounding towards zero is the way many pre-IEEE computers work, and corresponds mathematically to truncating the result. For example, if 2/3 is rounded to 6 decimal digits, the result is .666667 when the rounding mode is round towards nearest, but .666666 when the rounding mode is round towards zero.
When using ieee_flags to examine, clear, or set the rounding direction, possible values for the four input parameters are shown in TABLE 3-14.
When mode is precision, the specified action applies to the current rounding precision. On x86 based systems, the possible rounding precisions are: single, double, and extended. The default rounding precision is extended; in this mode, arithmetic operations that deliver a result to a floating point register round their result to the full 64-bit precision of the extended double register format. When the rounding precision is single or double, arithmetic operations that deliver a result to a floating point register round their result to 24 or 53 significant bits, respectively. Although most programs produce results that are at least as accurate, if not more so, when extended rounding precision is used, some programs that require strict adherence to the semantics of IEEE arithmetic will not work correctly in extended rounding precision mode and must be run with the rounding precision set to single or double as appropriate.
Rounding precision cannot be set on systems using SPARC processors. On these systems, calling ieee_flags with mode = precision has no effect on computation.
Finally, when mode is exception, the specified action applies to the current IEEE exception flags. See Chapter 4 for more information about using ieee_flags to examine and control the IEEE exception flags.
The libsunmath function ieee_retrospective prints information about unrequited exceptions and nonstandard IEEE modes. It reports:
The necessary information is obtained from the hardware floating-point status register.
ieee_retrospective prints information about exception flags that are raised, and exceptions for which a trap is enabled. These two distinct, if related, pieces of information should not be confused. If an exception flag is raised, then that exception occurred at some point during program execution. If a trap is enabled for an exception, then the exception may not have actually occurred (but if it had, a SIGFPE signal would have been delivered). The ieee_retrospective message is meant to alert you about exceptions that may need to be investigated (if the exception flag is raised), or to remind you that exceptions may have been handled by a signal handler (if the exception's trap is enabled.) Chapter 4 discusses exceptions, signals, and traps, and shows how to investigate the cause of a raised exception.
A program can explicitly call ieee_retrospective at any time. Fortran programs compiled with f95 in -f77 compatibility mode automatically call ieee_retrospective before they exit. C/C++ programs and Fortran programs compiled with f95 in the default mode do not automatically call ieee_retrospective.
Note, though, that the f95 compiler enables trapping on common exceptions by default, so unless a program either explicitly disables trapping or installs a SIGFPE handler, it will immediately abort when such an exception occurs. In -f77 compatibility mode, the compiler does not enable trapping, so when floating point exceptions occur, the program continues execution and reports those exceptions via the ieee_retrospective output on exit.
The syntax for calling this function is:
C, C++ ieee_retrospective(fp);
Fortran call ieee_retrospective()
For the C function, the argument fp specifies the file to which the output will be written. The Fortran function always prints output on stderr.
The following example shows four of the six ieee_retrospective warning messages:
A warning message appears only if trapping is enabled or an exception was raised.
You can suppress ieee_retrospective messages from Fortran programs by one of three methods. One approach is to clear all outstanding exceptions, disable traps, and restore round-to-nearest, extended precision, and standard modes before the program exits. To do this, call ieee_flags, ieee_handler, and standard_arithmetic as follows:
Another way to avoid seeing ieee_retrospective messages is to redirect stderr to a file. Of course, this method should not be used if the program sends output other than ieee_retrospective messages to stderr.
The third approach is to include a dummy ieee_retrospective function in the program, for example:
As discussed in Chapter 2, IEEE arithmetic handles underflowed results using gradual underflow. On some SPARC based systems, gradual underflow is often implemented partly with software emulation of the arithmetic. If many calculations underflow, this may cause performance degradation.
To obtain some information about whether this is a case in a specific program, you can use ieee_retrospective or ieee_flags to determine if underflow exceptions occur, and check the amount of system time used by the program. If a program spends an unusually large amount of time in the operating system, and raises underflow exceptions, gradual underflow may be the cause. In this case, using non-IEEE arithmetic may speed up program execution.
The function nonstandard_arithmetic causes underflowed results to be flushed to zero on those SPARC implementations that have a mode in hardware in which flushing to zero is faster. The trade-off for speed is accuracy, because the benefits of gradual underflow are lost.
The function standard_arithmetic resets the hardware to use the default IEEE arithmetic. Both functions have no effect on implementations that provide only the default IEEE 754 style of arithmetic--SuperSPARC® is such an implementation.
This section describes the <fenv.h> floating point environment functions in C99. In the Solaris 10 OS, these functions are available in libm. They provide many of the same capabilities as the ieee_flags function, but they use a more natural C interface, and because they are defined by C99, they are more portable.
Note - For consistent behavior, do not use both C99 floating point environment functions and exception handling extensions in libm and the ieee_flags and ieee_handler functions in libsunmath in the same program.
The fenv.h file defines macros for each of the five IEEE floating point exception flags: FE_INEXACT, FE_UNDERFLOW, FE_OVERFLOW, FE_DIVBYZERO, and FE_INVALID. In addition, the macro FE_ALL_EXCEPT is defined to be the bitwise "or" of all five flag macros. In the following descriptions, the excepts parameter may be a bitwise "or" of any of the five flag macros or the value FE_ALL_EXCEPT. For the fegetexceptflag and fesetexceptflag functions, the flagp parameter must be a pointer to an object of type fexcept_t. (This type is defined in fenv.h.)
C99 defines the following exception flag functions:
The feclearexcept function clears the specified flags. The fetestexcept function returns a bitwise "or" of the macro values corresponding to the subset of flags specified by the excepts argument that are set. For example, if the only flags currently set are inexact, underflow, and division by zero, then
i = fetestexcept(FE_INVALID | FE_DIVBYZERO);
would set i to FE_DIVBYZERO.
The feraiseexcept function causes a trap if any of the specified exceptions' trap is enabled. (See Chapter 4 for more information on exception traps.) Otherwise, it merely sets the corresponding flags.
The fegetexceptflag and fesetexceptflag functions provide a convenient way to temporarily save the state of certain flags and later restore them. In particular, the fesetexceptflag function does not cause a trap; it merely restores the values of the specified flags.
The fenv.h file defines macros for each of the four IEEE rounding direction modes: FE_TONEAREST, FE_UPWARD (toward positive infinity), FE_DOWNWARD (toward negative infinity), and FE_TOWARDZERO. C99 defines two functions to control rounding direction modes: fesetround sets the current rounding direction to the direction specified by its argument (which must be one of the four macros above), and fegetround returns the value of the macro corresponding to the current rounding direction.
On x86 based systems, the fenv.h file defines macros for each of three rounding precision modes: FE_FLTPREC (single precision), FE_DBLPREC (double precision), and FE_LDBLPREC (extended double precision). Although they are not part of C99, libm on x86 provides two functions to control the rounding precision mode: fesetprec sets the current rounding precision to the precision specified by its argument (which must be one of the three macros above), and fegetprec returns the value of the macro corresponding to the current rounding precision.
The fenv.h file defines the data type fenv_t, which represents the entire floating point environment including exception flags, rounding control modes, exception handling modes, and, on SPARC, nonstandard mode. In the descriptions that follow, the envp parameter must be a pointer to an object of type fenv_t.
C99 defines four functions to manipulate the floating point environment. libm provides an additional function that may be useful in multi-threaded programs. These functions are summarized in the following table:
The fegetenv and fesetenv functions respectively save and restore the floating point environment. The argument to fesetenv may be either a pointer to an environment previously saved by a call to fegetenv or feholdexcept or the constant FE_DFL_ENV defined in fenv.h. The latter represents the default environment with all exception flags clear, rounding to nearest (and to extended double precision on x86 based systems), nonstop exception handling mode (i.e., traps disabled), and on SPARC based systems, nonstandard mode disabled.
The feholdexcept function saves the current environment and then clears all exception flags and establishes nonstop exception handling mode for all exceptions. The feupdateenv function restores a saved environment (which may be one saved by a call to fegetenv or feholdexcept or the constant FE_DFL_ENV), then raises those exceptions whose flags were set in the previous environment. If the restored environment has traps enabled for any of those exceptions, a trap occurs; otherwise the flags are set. These two functions may be used in conjunction to make a subroutine call appear to be atomic with regard to exceptions, as the following code sample shows:
The fex_merge_flags function performs a logical OR of the exception flags from the saved environment into the current environment without provoking any traps. This function may be used in a multi-threaded program to preserve information in the parent thread about flags that were raised by a computation in a child thread. See Appendix A for an example showing the use of fex_merge_flags.
This section describes implementation features of libm and libsunmath:
The elementary functions in libm and libsunmath on SPARC based systems are implemented with an ever-changing combination of table-driven and polynomial/rational approximation algorithms. Some elementary functions in libm and libsunmath on x86 based systems are implemented using the elementary function kernel instructions provided in the x86 instruction set; other functions are implemented using the same table-driven or polynomial/rational approximation algorithms used on SPARC based systems.
Both the table-driven and polynomial/rational approximation algorithms for the common elementary functions in libm and the common single precision elementary functions in libsunmath deliver results that are accurate to within one unit in the last place (ulp). On SPARC based systems, the common quadruple precision elementary functions in libsunmath deliver results that are accurate to within one ulp, except for the expm1l and log1pl functions, which deliver results accurate to within two ulps. (The common functions include the exponential, logarithm, and power functions and circular trigonometric functions of radian arguments. Other functions, such as the hyperbolic trig functions and higher transcendental functions, are less accurate.) These error bounds have been obtained by direct analysis of the algorithms. Users can also test the accuracy of these routines using BeEF, the Berkeley Elementary Function test programs, available from netlib in the ucbtest package (http://www.netlib.org/fp/ucbtest.tgz).
Trigonometric functions for radian arguments outside the range [-/4,/4] are usually computed by reducing the argument to the indicated range by subtracting integral multiples of /2.
Because is not a machine-representable number, it must be approximated. The error in the final computed trigonometric function depends on the rounding errors in argument reduction (with an approximate as well as the rounding), and approximation errors in computing the trigonometric function of the reduced argument. Even for fairly small arguments, the relative error in the final result might be dominated by the argument reduction error, while even for fairly large arguments, the error due to argument reduction might be no worse than the other errors.
There is widespread misapprehension that trigonometric functions of all large arguments are inherently inaccurate, and all small arguments relatively accurate. This is based on the simple observation that large enough machine-representable numbers are separated by a distance greater than .
There is no inherent boundary at which computed trigonometric function values suddenly become bad, nor are the inaccurate function values useless. Provided that the argument reduction is done consistently, the fact that the argument reduction is performed with an approximation to is practically undetectable, because all essential identities and relationships are as well preserved for large arguments as for small.
libm and libsunmath trigonometric functions use an "infinitely" precise for argument reduction. The value 2/ is computed to 916 hexadecimal digits and stored in a lookup table to use during argument reduction.
The group of functions sinpi, cospi, and tanpi (see TABLE 3-3) scales the input argument by to avoid inaccuracies introduced by range reduction.
In libm and libsunmath, there is a flexible data conversion routine, convert_external, used to convert binary floating-point data between IEEE and non-IEEE formats.
Formats supported include those used by SPARC (IEEE), IBM PC, VAX, IBM S/370, and Cray.
Refer to the man page on convert_external(3m) for an example of taking data generated on a Cray, and using the function convert_external to convert the data into the IEEE format expected on SPARC based systems.
There are three facilities for generating uniform pseudo-random numbers in 32-bit integer, single precision floating point, and double precision floating point formats:
In addition, the functions described on the shufrans(3m) manual page may be used in conjunction with any of these generators to shuffle an array of pseudo-random numbers, thereby providing even more randomness for applications that need it. (Note that there is no facility for shuffling arrays of 64-bit integers.)
Each of the random number facilities includes routines that generate one random number at a time (i.e., one per function call) as well as routines that generate an array of random numbers in a single call. The functions that generate one random number at a time deliver numbers that lie in the ranges shown in TABLE 3-17.
The functions that generate an entire array of random numbers in a single call allow the user to specify the interval in which the generated numbers will lie. Appendix A gives several examples that show how to generate arrays of random numbers uniformly distributed over different intervals.
Note that the addrans and mwcrans generators are generally more efficient than the lcrans generators, but their theory is not as refined. "Random Number Generators: Good Ones Are Hard To Find", by S. Park and K. Miller, Communications of the ACM, October 1988, discusses the theoretical properties of linear congruential algorithms. Additive random number generators are discussed in Volume 2 of Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.