ecvt(3) Library Functions Manual ecvt(3)
NAME
ecvt, fcvt - convert a floating-point number to a string
LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>
[[deprecated]] char *ecvt(double number, int ndigits,
int *restrict decpt, int *restrict sign);
[[deprecated]] char *fcvt(double number, int ndigits,
int *restrict decpt, int *restrict sign);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
ecvt(), fcvt():
Since glibc 2.17
(_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 && ! (_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L))
|| /* glibc >= 2.20 */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
|| /* glibc <= 2.19 */ _SVID_SOURCE
glibc 2.12 to glibc 2.16:
(_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 && ! (_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L))
|| _SVID_SOURCE
Before glibc 2.12:
_SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
DESCRIPTION
The ecvt() function converts number to a null-terminated string of ndig-
its digits (where ndigits is reduced to a system-specific limit deter-
mined by the precision of a double), and returns a pointer to the
string. The high-order digit is nonzero, unless number is zero. The
low order digit is rounded. The string itself does not contain a deci-
mal point; however, the position of the decimal point relative to the
start of the string is stored in *decpt. A negative value for *decpt
means that the decimal point is to the left of the start of the string.
If the sign of number is negative, *sign is set to a nonzero value, oth-
erwise it is set to 0. If number is zero, it is unspecified whether
*decpt is 0 or 1.
The fcvt() function is identical to ecvt(), except that ndigits speci-
fies the number of digits after the decimal point.
RETURN VALUE
Both the ecvt() and fcvt() functions return a pointer to a static string
containing the ASCII representation of number. The static string is
overwritten by each call to ecvt() or fcvt().
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ ecvt() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:ecvt │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ fcvt() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:fcvt │
└────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────────────────┘
STANDARDS
None.
HISTORY
SVr2; marked as LEGACY in POSIX.1-2001. POSIX.1-2008 removes the speci-
fications of ecvt() and fcvt(), recommending the use of sprintf(3) in-
stead (though snprintf(3) may be preferable).
NOTES
Not all locales use a point as the radix character ("decimal point").
SEE ALSO
ecvt_r(3), gcvt(3), qecvt(3), setlocale(3), sprintf(3)
Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 ecvt(3)
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