Checking if a double (or float) is NaN in C++

Question

Is there an isnan() function?

PS.: I'm in MinGW (if that makes a difference).

I had this solved by using isnan() from <math.h>, which doesn't exist in <cmath>, which I was #includeing at first.

Answer 1

According to the IEEE standard, NaN values have the odd property that comparisons involving them are always false. That is, for a float f, f != f will be true only if f is NaN.

Note that, as some comments below have pointed out, not all compilers respect this when optimizing code.

For any compiler which claims to use IEEE floating point, this trick should work. But I can't guarantee that it will work in practice. Check with your compiler, if in doubt.

Answer 2

There is no isnan() function available in current C++ Standard Library. It was introduced in C99 and defined as a macro not a function. Elements of standard library defined by C99 are not part of current C++ standard ISO/IEC 14882:1998 neither its update ISO/IEC 14882:2003.

In 2005 Technical Report 1 was proposed. The TR1 brings compatibility with C99 to C++. In spite of the fact it has never been officially adopted to become C++ standard, many (GCC 4.0+ or Visual C++ 9.0+ C++ implementations do provide TR1 features, all of them or only some (Visual C++ 9.0 does not provide C99 math functions).

If TR1 is available, then cmath includes C99 elements like isnan(), isfinite(), etc. but they are defined as functions, not macros, usually in std::tr1:: namespace, though many implementations (i.e. GCC 4+ on Linux or in XCode on Mac OS X 10.5+) inject them directly to std::, so std::isnan is well defined.

Moreover, some implementations of C++ still make C99 isnan() macro available for C++ (included through cmath or math.h), what may cause more confusions and developers may assume it's a standard behaviour.

A note about Viusal C++, as mentioned above, it does not provide std::isnan neither std::tr1::isnan, but it provides an extension function defined as _isnan() which has been available since Visual C++ 6.0

On XCode, there is even more fun. As mentioned, GCC 4+ defines std::isnan. For older versions of compiler and library form XCode, it seems (here is relevant discussion), haven't had chance to check myself) two functions are defined, __inline_isnand() on Intel and __isnand() on Power PC.

Answer 3

First solution: if you are using C++11

Since this was asked there were a bit of new developments: it is important to know that std::isnan() is part of C++11

Synopsis

Defined in header <cmath>

bool isnan( float arg ); (since C++11)
bool isnan( double arg ); (since C++11)
bool isnan( long double arg ); (since C++11)

Determines if the given floating point number arg is not-a-number (NaN).

Parameters

arg: floating point value

Return value

true if arg is NaN, false otherwise

Reference

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/numeric/math/isnan

Please note that this is incompatible with -fast-math if you use g++, see below for other suggestions.

---

Other solutions: if you using non C++11 compliant tools

For C99, in C, this is implemented as a macro isnan(c)that returns an int value. The type of x shall be float, double or long double.

Various vendors may or may not include or not a function isnan().

The supposedly portable way to check for NaN is to use the IEEE 754 property that NaN is not equal to itself: i.e. x == x will be false for x being NaN.

However the last option may not work with every compiler and some settings (particularly optimisation settings), so in last resort, you can always check the bit pattern ...

Answer 4

There is also a header-only library present in Boost that have neat tools to deal with floating point datatypes

#include <boost/math/special_functions/fpclassify.hpp>

You get the following functions:

template <class T> bool isfinite(T z);
template <class T> bool isinf(T t);
template <class T> bool isnan(T t);
template <class T> bool isnormal(T t);

If you have time then have a look at whole Math toolkit from Boost, it has many useful tools and is growing quickly.

Also when dealing with floating and non-floating points it might be a good idea to look at the Numeric Conversions.

Answer 5

There are three "official" ways: posix isnan macro, c++0x isnan function template, or visual c++ _isnan function.

Unfortunately it's rather impractical to detect which of those to use.

And unfortunately, there's no reliable way to detect whether you have IEEE 754 representation with NaNs. The standard library offers an official such way (numeric_limits<double>::is_iec559). But in practice compilers such as g++ screw that up.

In theory one could use simply x != x, but compilers such as g++ and visual c++ screw that up.

So in the end, test for the specific NaN bitpatterns, assuming (and hopefully enforcing, at some point!) a particular representation such as IEEE 754.

---

EDIT: as an example of "compilers such as g++ … screw that up", consider

#include <limits>
#include <assert.h>

void foo( double a, double b )
{
    assert( a != b );
}

int main()
{
    typedef std::numeric_limits<double> Info;
    double const nan1 = Info::quiet_NaN();
    double const nan2 = Info::quiet_NaN();
    foo( nan1, nan2 );
}

Compiling with g++ (TDM-2 mingw32) 4.4.1:

C:\test> type "C:\Program Files\@commands\gnuc.bat"
@rem -finput-charset=windows-1252
@g++ -O -pedantic -std=c++98 -Wall -Wwrite-strings %* -Wno-long-long

C:\test> gnuc x.cpp

C:\test> a && echo works... || echo !failed
works...

C:\test> gnuc x.cpp --fast-math

C:\test> a && echo works... || echo !failed
Assertion failed: a != b, file x.cpp, line 6

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.
!failed

C:\test> _

Answer 6

There is an std::isnan if you compiler supports c99 extensions, but I'm not sure if mingw does.

Here is a small function which should work if your compiler doesn't have the standard function:

bool custom_isnan(double var)
{
    volatile double d = var;
    return d != d;
}

Answer 7

You can use numeric_limits<float>::quiet_NaN( ) defined in the limits standard library to test with. There's a separate constant defined for double.

#include <iostream>
#include <math.h>
#include <limits>

using namespace std;

int main( )
{
   cout << "The quiet NaN for type float is:  "
        << numeric_limits<float>::quiet_NaN( )
        << endl;

   float f_nan = numeric_limits<float>::quiet_NaN();

   if( isnan(f_nan) )
   {
       cout << "Float was Not a Number: " << f_nan << endl;
   }

   return 0;
}

I don't know if this works on all platforms, as I only tested with g++ on Linux.

Answer 8

You can use the isnan() function, but you need to include the C math library.

#include <cmath>

As this function is part of C99, it is not available everywhere. If your vendor does not supply the function, you can also define your own variant for compatibility.

inline bool isnan(double x) {
    return x != x;
}

Answer 9

nan prevention

My answer to this question is don't use retroactive checks for nan. Use preventive checks for divisions of the form 0.0/0.0 instead.

#include <float.h>
float x=0.f ;             // I'm gonna divide by x!
if( !x )                  // Wait! Let me check if x is 0
  x = FLT_MIN ;           // oh, since x was 0, i'll just make it really small instead.
float y = 0.f / x ;       // whew, `nan` didn't appear.

nan results from the operation 0.f/0.f, or 0.0/0.0. nan is a terrible nemesis to the stability of your code that must be detected and prevented very carefully¹. The properties of nan that are different from normal numbers:

• nan is toxic, (5*nan=nan)
• nan is not equal to anything, not even itself (nan != nan)
• nan not greater than anything (nan !> 0)
• nan is not less than anything (nan !< 0)

The last 2 properties listed are counter-logical and will result in odd behavior of code that relies on comparisons with a nan number (the 3rd last property is odd too but you're probably not ever going to see x != x ? in your code (unless you are checking for nan (unreliably))).

In my own code, I noticed that nan values tend to produce difficult to find bugs. (Note how this is not the case for inf or -inf. (-inf < 0) returns TRUE, ( 0 < inf ) returns TRUE, and even (-inf < inf) returns TRUE. So, in my experience, the behavior of the code is often still as desired).

what to do under nan

What you want to happen under 0.0/0.0 must be handled as a special case, but what you do must depend on the numbers you expect to come out of the code.

In the example above, the result of (0.f/FLT_MIN) will be 0, basically. You may want 0.0/0.0 to generate HUGE instead. So,

float x=0.f, y=0.f, z;
if( !x && !y )    // 0.f/0.f case
  z = FLT_MAX ;   // biggest float possible
else
  z = y/x ;       // regular division.

So in the above, if x were 0.f, inf would result (which has pretty good/nondestructive behavior as mentioned above actually).

Remember, integer division by 0 causes a runtime exception. So you must always check for integer division by 0. Just because 0.0/0.0 quietly evaluates to nan doesn't mean you can be lazy and not check for 0.0/0.0 before it happens.

1 _{Checks for nan via x != x are sometimes unreliable (x != x being stripped out by some optimizing compilers that break IEEE compliance, specifically when the -ffast-math switch is enabled).}

Answer 10

As of C++14 there are a number of ways to test if a floating point number value is a NaN.

Of these ways, only checking of the bits of the number's representation, works reliably, as noted in my original answer. In particular, std::isnan and the often proposed check v != v, do not work reliably and should not be used, lest your code stops working correctly when someone decides that floating point optimization is needed, and asks the compiler to do that. This situation can change, compilers can get more conforming, but for this issue that hasn't happened in the 6 years since the original answer.

For about 6 years my original answer was the selected solution for this question, which was OK. But recently a highly upvoted answer recommending the unreliable v != v test has been selected. Hence this additional more up-to-date answer (we now have the C++11 and C++14 standards, and C++17 on the horizon).

---

The main ways to check for NaN-ness, as of C++14, are:

• std::isnan(value) )
  is the intended standard library way since C++11. isnan apparently conflicts with the Posix macro of the same name, but in practice that isn't a problem. The main problem is that when floating point arithmetic optimization is requested, then with at least one main compiler, namely g++, std::isnan returns false for NaN argument.

• (fpclassify(value) == FP_NAN) )
  Suffers from the same problem as std::isnan, i.e., is not reliable.

• (value != value) )
  Recommended in many SO answers. Suffers from the same problem as std::isnan, i.e., is not reliable.

• (value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN()) )
  This is a test that with standard behavior should not detect NaNs, but that with the optimized behavior maybe could detect NaNs (due to optimized code just comparing the bitlevel representations directly), and perhaps combined with another way to cover the standard un-optimized behavior, could reliably detect NaN. Unfortunately it turned out to not work reliably.

• (ilogb(value) == FP_ILOGBNAN) )
  Suffers from the same problem as std::isnan, i.e., is not reliable.

• isunordered(1.2345, value) )
  Suffers from the same problem as std::isnan, i.e., is not reliable.

• is_ieee754_nan( value ) )
  This isn't a standard function. It's checking of the bits according to the IEEE 754 standard. It's completely reliable but the code is somewhat system-dependent.

---

In the following complete test code “success” is whether an expression reports Nan-ness of the value. For most expressions this measure of success, the goal of detecting NaNs and only NaNs, corresponds to their standard semantics. For the (value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN()) ) expression, however, the standard behavior is that it doesn't work as a NaN-detector.

#include <cmath>        // std::isnan, std::fpclassify
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>      // std::setw
#include <limits>
#include <limits.h>     // CHAR_BIT
#include <sstream>
#include <stdint.h>     // uint64_t
using namespace std;

#define TEST( x, expr, expected ) \
    [&](){ \
        const auto value = x; \
        const bool result = expr; \
        ostringstream stream; \
        stream << boolalpha << #x " = " << x << ", (" #expr ") = " << result; \
        cout \
            << setw( 60 ) << stream.str() << "  " \
            << (result == expected? "Success" : "FAILED") \
            << endl; \
    }()

#define TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( expression ) \
    TEST( v, expression, true ); \
    TEST( u, expression, false ); \
    TEST( w, expression, false )

using Fp_info = numeric_limits<double>;

inline auto is_ieee754_nan( double const x )
    -> bool
{
    static constexpr bool   is_claimed_ieee754  = Fp_info::is_iec559;
    static constexpr int    n_bits_per_byte     = CHAR_BIT;
    using Byte = unsigned char;

    static_assert( is_claimed_ieee754, "!" );
    static_assert( n_bits_per_byte == 8, "!" );
    static_assert( sizeof( x ) == sizeof( uint64_t ), "!" );

    #ifdef _MSC_VER
        uint64_t const bits = reinterpret_cast<uint64_t const&>( x );
    #else
        Byte bytes[sizeof(x)];
        memcpy( bytes, &x, sizeof( x ) );
        uint64_t int_value;
        memcpy( &int_value, bytes, sizeof( x ) );
        uint64_t const& bits = int_value;
    #endif

    static constexpr uint64_t   sign_mask       = 0x8000000000000000;
    static constexpr uint64_t   exp_mask        = 0x7FF0000000000000;
    static constexpr uint64_t   mantissa_mask   = 0x000FFFFFFFFFFFFF;

    (void) sign_mask;
    return (bits & exp_mask) == exp_mask and (bits & mantissa_mask) != 0;
}

auto main()
    -> int
{
    double const v = Fp_info::quiet_NaN();
    double const u = 3.14;
    double const w = Fp_info::infinity();

    cout << boolalpha << left;
    cout << "Compiler claims IEEE 754 = " << Fp_info::is_iec559 << endl;
    cout << endl;;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( std::isnan(value) );                    cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( (fpclassify(value) == FP_NAN) );        cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( (value != value) );                     cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( (value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN()) );      cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( (ilogb(value) == FP_ILOGBNAN) );        cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( isunordered(1.2345, value) );           cout << endl;
    TEST_ALL_VARIABLES( is_ieee754_nan( value ) );
}

Results with g++ (note again that the standard behavior of (value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN()) is that it doesn't work as a NaN-detector, it's just very much of practical interest here):

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> g++ --version | find "++"
g++ (x86_64-win32-sjlj-rev1, Built by MinGW-W64 project) 6.3.0

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> g++ foo.cpp && a
Compiler claims IEEE 754 = true

v = nan, (std::isnan(value)) = true                           Success
u = 3.14, (std::isnan(value)) = false                         Success
w = inf, (std::isnan(value)) = false                          Success

v = nan, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = true               Success
u = 3.14, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = false             Success
w = inf, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = false              Success

v = nan, ((value != value)) = true                            Success
u = 3.14, ((value != value)) = false                          Success
w = inf, ((value != value)) = false                           Success

v = nan, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            FAILED
u = 3.14, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false           Success
w = inf, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            Success

v = nan, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = true         Success
u = 3.14, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = false       Success
w = inf, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = false        Success

v = nan, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = true                  Success
u = 3.14, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                Success
w = inf, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                 Success

v = nan, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = true                     Success
u = 3.14, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                   Success
w = inf, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                    Success

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> g++ foo.cpp -ffast-math && a
Compiler claims IEEE 754 = true

v = nan, (std::isnan(value)) = false                          FAILED
u = 3.14, (std::isnan(value)) = false                         Success
w = inf, (std::isnan(value)) = false                          Success

v = nan, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = false              FAILED
u = 3.14, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = false             Success
w = inf, ((fpclassify(value) == 0x0100)) = false              Success

v = nan, ((value != value)) = false                           FAILED
u = 3.14, ((value != value)) = false                          Success
w = inf, ((value != value)) = false                           Success

v = nan, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = true             Success
u = 3.14, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = true            FAILED
w = inf, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = true             FAILED

v = nan, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = true         Success
u = 3.14, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = false       Success
w = inf, ((ilogb(value) == ((int)0x80000000))) = false        Success

v = nan, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                 FAILED
u = 3.14, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                Success
w = inf, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                 Success

v = nan, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = true                     Success
u = 3.14, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                   Success
w = inf, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                    Success

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> _

Results with Visual C++:

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> cl /nologo- 2>&1 | find "++"
Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.00.23725 for x86

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> cl foo.cpp /Feb && b
foo.cpp
Compiler claims IEEE 754 = true

v = nan, (std::isnan(value)) = true                           Success
u = 3.14, (std::isnan(value)) = false                         Success
w = inf, (std::isnan(value)) = false                          Success

v = nan, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = true                    Success
u = 3.14, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = false                  Success
w = inf, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = false                   Success

v = nan, ((value != value)) = true                            Success
u = 3.14, ((value != value)) = false                          Success
w = inf, ((value != value)) = false                           Success

v = nan, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            FAILED
u = 3.14, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false           Success
w = inf, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            Success

v = nan, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = true                Success
u = 3.14, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = false              Success
w = inf, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = true                FAILED

v = nan, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = true                  Success
u = 3.14, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                Success
w = inf, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                 Success

v = nan, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = true                     Success
u = 3.14, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                   Success
w = inf, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                    Success

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> cl foo.cpp /Feb /fp:fast && b
foo.cpp
Compiler claims IEEE 754 = true

v = nan, (std::isnan(value)) = true                           Success
u = 3.14, (std::isnan(value)) = false                         Success
w = inf, (std::isnan(value)) = false                          Success

v = nan, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = true                    Success
u = 3.14, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = false                  Success
w = inf, ((fpclassify(value) == 2)) = false                   Success

v = nan, ((value != value)) = true                            Success
u = 3.14, ((value != value)) = false                          Success
w = inf, ((value != value)) = false                           Success

v = nan, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            FAILED
u = 3.14, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false           Success
w = inf, ((value == Fp_info::quiet_NaN())) = false            Success

v = nan, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = true                Success
u = 3.14, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = false              Success
w = inf, ((ilogb(value) == 0x7fffffff)) = true                FAILED

v = nan, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = true                  Success
u = 3.14, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                Success
w = inf, (isunordered(1.2345, value)) = false                 Success

v = nan, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = true                     Success
u = 3.14, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                   Success
w = inf, (is_ieee754_nan( value )) = false                    Success

[C:\my\forums\so\282  (detect NaN)]
> _

Summing up the above results, only direct testing of the bit-level representation, using the is_ieee754_nan function defined in this test program, worked reliably in all cases with both g++ and Visual C++.

---

Addendum:
After posting the above I became aware of yet another possible to test for NaN, mentioned in another answer here, namely ((value < 0) == (value >= 0)). That turned out to work fine with Visual C++ but failed with g++'s -ffast-math option. Only direct bitpattern testing works reliably.

Answer 11

The following code uses the definition of NAN (all exponent bits set, at least one fractional bit set) and assumes that sizeof(int) = sizeof(float) = 4. You can look up NAN in Wikipedia for the details.

bool IsNan( float value ) { return ((*(UINT*)&value) & 0x7fffffff) > 0x7f800000; }

Answer 12

inline bool IsNan(float f)
{
    const uint32 u = *(uint32*)&f;
    return (u&0x7F800000) == 0x7F800000 && (u&0x7FFFFF);    // Both NaN and qNan.
}

inline bool IsNan(double d)
{
    const uint64 u = *(uint64*)&d;
    return (u&0x7FF0000000000000ULL) == 0x7FF0000000000000ULL && (u&0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFULL);
}

This works if sizeof(int) is 4 and sizeof(long long) is 8.

During run time it is only comparison, castings do not take any time. It just changes comparison flags configuration to check equality.

Answer 13

A possible solution that would not depend on the specific IEEE representation for NaN used would be the following:

template<class T>
bool isnan( T f ) {
    T _nan =  (T)0.0/(T)0.0;
    return 0 == memcmp( (void*)&f, (void*)&_nan, sizeof(T) );
}

Answer 14

Considering that (x != x) is not always guaranteed for NaN (such as if using the -ffast-math option), I've been using:

#define IS_NAN(x) (((x) < 0) == ((x) >= 0))

Numbers can't be both < 0 and >= 0, so really this check only passes if the number is neither less than, nor greater than or equal to zero. Which is basically no number at all, or NaN.

You could also use this if you prefer:

#define IS_NAN(x) (!((x)<0) && !((x)>=0)

I'm not sure how this is affected by -ffast-math though, so your mileage may vary.

Answer 15

As for me the solution could be a macro to make it explicitly inline and thus fast enough. It also works for any float type. It bases on the fact that the only case when a value is not equals itself is when the value is not a number.

#ifndef isnan
  #define isnan(a) (a != a)
#endif

Answer 16

This works:

#include <iostream>
#include <math.h>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
  char ch='a';
  double val = nan(&ch);
  if(isnan(val))
     cout << "isnan" << endl;

  return 0;
}

output: isnan

Answer 17

It seems to me that the best truly cross-platform approach would be to use a union and to test the bit pattern of the double to check for NaNs.

I have not thoroughly tested this solution, and there may be a more efficient way of working with the bit patterns, but I think that it should work.

#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdio.h>

union NaN
{
    uint64_t bits;
    double num;
};

int main()
{
    //Test if a double is NaN
    double d = 0.0 / 0.0;
    union NaN n;
    n.num = d;
    if((n.bits | 0x800FFFFFFFFFFFFF) == 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
    {
        printf("NaN: %f", d);
    }

    return 0;
}

Answer 18

The IEEE standard says when the exponent is all 1s and the mantissa is not zero, the number is a NaN. Double is 1 sign bit, 11 exponent bits and 52 mantissa bits. Do a bit check.

Answer 19

As comments above state a != a will not work in g++ and some other compilers, but this trick should. It may not be as efficient, but it's still a way:

bool IsNan(float a)
{
    char s[4];
    sprintf(s, "%.3f", a);
    if (s[0]=='n') return true;
    else return false;
}

Basically, in g++ (I am not sure about others though) printf prints 'nan' on %d or %.f formats if variable is not a valid integer/float. Therefore this code is checking for the first character of string to be 'n' (as in "nan")

Answer 20

This detects infinity and also NaN in Visual Studio by checking it is within double limits:

//#include <float.h>
double x, y = -1.1; x = sqrt(y);
if (x >= DBL_MIN && x <= DBL_MAX )
    cout << "DETECTOR-2 of errors FAILS" << endl;
else
    cout << "DETECTOR-2 of errors OK" << endl;