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strtof, strtod, strtold

Defined in header <stdlib.h>
float       strtof( const char *restrict str, char **restrict str_end );
(since C99)
double      strtod( const char          *str, char          **str_end );
(until C99)
double      strtod( const char *restrict str, char **restrict str_end );
(since C99)
long double strtold( const char *restrict str, char **restrict str_end );
(since C99)

Interprets a floating-point value in a byte string pointed to by str.

Function discards any whitespace characters (as determined by std::isspace()) until first non-whitespace character is found. Then it takes as many characters as possible to form a valid floating-point representation and converts them to a floating-point value. The valid floating-point value can be one of the following:

  • decimal floating-point expression. It consists of the following parts:
    • (optional) plus or minus sign
    • nonempty sequence of decimal digits optionally containing decimal-point character (as determined by the current C locale) (defines significand)
    • (optional) e or E followed with optional minus or plus sign and nonempty sequence of decimal digits (defines exponent to base 10)
  • hexadecimal floating-point expression. It consists of the following parts:
    • (optional) plus or minus sign
    • 0x or 0X
    • nonempty sequence of hexadecimal digits optionally containing a decimal-point character (as determined by the current C locale) (defines significand)
    • (optional) p or P followed with optional minus or plus sign and nonempty sequence of decimal digits (defines exponent to base 2)
  • infinity expression. It consists of the following parts:
    • (optional) plus or minus sign
    • INF or INFINITY ignoring case
  • not-a-number expression. It consists of the following parts:
    • (optional) plus or minus sign
    • NAN or NAN(char_sequence) ignoring case of the NAN part. char_sequence can only contain digits, Latin letters, and underscores. The result is a quiet NaN floating-point value.
(since C99)
  • any other expression that may be accepted by the currently installed C locale

The functions sets the pointer pointed to by str_end to point to the character past the last character interpreted. If str_end is a null pointer, it is ignored.

Parameters

str - pointer to the null-terminated byte string to be interpreted
str_end - pointer to a pointer to character.

Return value

Floating-point value corresponding to the contents of str on success. If the converted value falls out of range of corresponding return type, range error occurs and HUGE_VAL, HUGE_VALF or HUGE_VALL is returned. If no conversion can be performed, ​0​ is returned.

Example

#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    // parsing with error handling
    const char *p = "111.11 -2.22 Nan nan(2) inF 0X1.BC70A3D70A3D7P+6  1.18973e+4932zzz";
    printf("Parsing '%s':\n", p);
    char *end;
    for (double f = strtod(p, &end); p != end; f = strtod(p, &end))
    {
        printf("'%.*s' -> ", (int)(end-p), p);
        p = end;
        if (errno == ERANGE){
            printf("range error, got ");
            errno = 0;
        }
        printf("%f\n", f);
    }
 
    // parsing without error handling
    printf("\"  -0.0000000123junk\"  -->  %g\n", strtod("  -0.0000000123junk", NULL));
    printf("\"junk\"                 -->  %g\n", strtod("junk", NULL));
}

Possible output:

Parsing '111.11 -2.22 Nan nan(2) inF 0X1.BC70A3D70A3D7P+6  1.18973e+4932zzz':
'111.11' -> 111.110000
' -2.22' -> -2.220000
' Nan' -> nan
' nan(2)' -> nan
' inF' -> inf
' 0X1.BC70A3D70A3D7P+6' -> 111.110000
'  1.18973e+4932' -> range error, got inf
"  -0.0000000123junk"  -->  -1.23e-08
"junk"                 -->  0

References

  • C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):
    • 7.22.1.3 The strtod, strtof, and strtold functions (p: 249-251)
  • C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
    • 7.22.1.3 The strtod, strtof, and strtold functions (p: 342-344)
  • C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
    • 7.20.1.3 The strtod, strtof, and strtold functions (p: 308-310)
  • C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
    • 4.10.1.4 The strtod function

See also

converts a byte string to a floating-point value
(function)
(C99)(C95)(C99)
converts a wide string to a floating-point value
(function)
C++ documentation for strtof, strtod, strtold

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