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Project Notes

Numeric Limits

Numeric limits information available in the C standard library (and finding another clang/gcc difference).

Notes

Since C runs on many computer architectures, numeric limits can vary. The standard library provides support for checking numeric limits at runtime.

Running the Example

See example.c for details. A makefile compiles and runs:

$ make
gcc-10 -Wall -O0 -std=c11    example.c   -o example
./example
## Limits of library types:
PTRDIFF_MIN    = -9223372036854775808
PTRDIFF_MAX    = +9223372036854775807
SIZE_MAX       = 18446744073709551615
SIG_ATOMIC_MIN = -2147483648
SIG_ATOMIC_MAX = +2147483647
WCHAR_MIN      = -2147483648
WCHAR_MAX      = +2147483647
WINT_MIN       = -2147483648
WINT_MAX       = 2147483647

## Limits of integer types:
CHAR_BIT   = 8
MB_LEN_MAX = 6

CHAR_MIN   = -128
CHAR_MAX   = +127
SCHAR_MIN  = -128
SCHAR_MAX  = +127
UCHAR_MAX  = 255

SHRT_MIN   = -32768
SHRT_MAX   = +32767
USHRT_MAX  = 65535

INT_MIN    = -2147483648
INT_MAX    = +2147483647
UINT_MAX   = 4294967295

LONG_MIN   = -9223372036854775808
LONG_MAX   = +9223372036854775807
ULONG_MAX  = 18446744073709551615

LLONG_MIN  = -9223372036854775808
LLONG_MAX  = +9223372036854775807
ULLONG_MAX = 18446744073709551615

## Limits of floating point types:
FLT_RADIX    = 2
DECIMAL_DIG  = 21
FLT_MIN      = 1.175494e-38
FLT_MAX      = 3.402823e+38
FLT_EPSILON  = 1.192093e-07
FLT_DIG      = 6
FLT_MANT_DIG = 24
FLT_MIN_EXP  = -125
FLT_MIN_10_EXP  = -37
FLT_MAX_EXP     = 128
FLT_MAX_10_EXP  = 38
FLT_ROUNDS      = 1
FLT_EVAL_METHOD = 0
FLT_HAS_SUBNORM = 1

Limitations

I just discovered that the clang 10.0.0 headers don’t include the fix for *_HAS_SUBNORM floating point limits.

So to run the example above on my Mac, I’m using gcc-10 installed with brew:

$ gcc-10 -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc-10
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/10.2.0/libexec/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17/10.2.0/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin17
Configured with: ../configure --build=x86_64-apple-darwin17 --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/10.2.0 --libdir=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/10.2.0/lib/gcc/10 --disable-nls --enable-checking=release --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++,fortran --program-suffix=-10 --with-gmp=/usr/local/opt/gmp --with-mpfr=/usr/local/opt/mpfr --with-mpc=/usr/local/opt/libmpc --with-isl=/usr/local/opt/isl --with-system-zlib --with-pkgversion='Homebrew GCC 10.2.0' --with-bugurl=https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues --disable-multilib SED=/usr/bin/sed
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib
gcc version 10.2.0 (Homebrew GCC 10.2.0)

Rather than the default gcc installed with Xcode:

$ gcc -v
Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 10.0.0 (clang-1000.11.45.5)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin

Credits and References

About LCK#176 C
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This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LittleCodingKata GitHub repository.

LittleCodingKata is my collection of programming exercises, research and code toys broadly spanning things that relate to programming and software development (languages, frameworks and tools).

These range from the trivial to the complex and serious. Many are inspired by existing work and I'll note credits and references where applicable. The focus is quite scattered, as I variously work on things new and important in the moment, or go back to revisit things from the past.

This is primarily a personal collection for my own edification and learning, but anyone who stumbles by is welcome to borrow, steal or reference the work here. And if you spot errors or issues I'd really appreciate some feedback - create an issue, send me an email or even send a pull-request.