Complex (Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)) (original) (raw)

6.1.3 Complex Numbers ¶

ISO C99 supports complex floating data types, and as an extension GCC supports them in C90 mode and in C++. GCC also supports complex integer data types which are not part of ISO C99. You can declare complex types using the keyword _Complex. As an extension, the older GNU keyword __complex__ is also supported.

For example, ‘_Complex double x;’ declares x as a variable whose real part and imaginary part are both of typedouble. ‘_Complex short int y;’ declares y to have real and imaginary parts of type short int; this is not likely to be useful, but it shows that the set of complex types is complete.

To write a constant with a complex data type, use the suffix ‘i’, ‘I’, ‘j’ or ‘J’ (any one; they are equivalent). For example, 2.5fi has type _Complex float and 3i has type_Complex int. Such a constant always has a pure imaginary value, but you can form any complex value you like by adding one to a real constant. This is part of ISO C2Y and for older C revisions a GNU extension. If you have an ISO C99 conforming C library (such as the GNU C Library), and want to construct complex constants of floating type when using standard versions before ISO C2Y, you should include <complex.h> and use the macros I or_Complex_I instead.

For C++ if -fext-numeric-literals option is enabled, it is also a GNU extension, otherwise it is handled like any other C++ user-defined literal. The ISO C++14 library also defines the ‘i’ suffix, so C++14 code that includes the ‘’ header cannot use ‘i’ for the GNU extension. The ‘I’, ‘j’ or ‘J’ suffixes still have the GNU meaning.

GCC handles both implicit and explicit casts between the_Complex types with different scalar base types by casting both the real and imaginary parts to the base type of the result. GCC also handles implicit and explicit casts from a scalar type to a_Complex type, by giving the imaginary part a zero value.

The C front end can handle implicit and explicit casts from a_Complex type to a scalar type, which uses the value of the real part and ignores the imaginary part. In C++ code, this cast is considered ill-formed and G++ diagnoses it as an error.

GCC has a few extensions which can be used to extract the real and the imaginary part of the complex-valued expression. Note these expressions are lvalues if the exp is an lvalue. These expressions operands have the type of a complex type which might get promoted to a complex type from a scalar type. E.g. __real__ (int)x is the same as casting to_Complex int before __real__ is done.

For values of floating-point type, you should use the ISO C99 functions, declared in <complex.h> and also provided as built-in functions by GCC.

The operator ‘~’ performs complex conjugation when used on a value with a complex type. This is a GNU extension; for values of floating type, you should use the ISO C99 functions conjf,conj and conjl, declared in <complex.h> and also provided as built-in functions by GCC. Note unlike the __real__and __imag__ operators, this operator does not do an implicit cast to the complex type because the ‘~’ is already a normal operator.

GCC can allocate complex automatic variables in a noncontiguous fashion; it’s even possible for the real part to be in a register while the imaginary part is on the stack (or vice versa). Only the DWARF debug info format can represent this, so use of DWARF is recommended. If you are using the stabs debug info format, GCC describes a noncontiguous complex variable as if it were two separate variables of noncomplex type. If the variable’s actual name is foo, the two fictitious variables are named foo$real and foo$imag. You can examine and set these two fictitious variables with your debugger.

Built-in Function: type __builtin_complex (real, imag) ¶

The built-in function __builtin_complex is provided for use in implementing the ISO C11 macros CMPLXF, CMPLX andCMPLXL. real and imag must have the same type, a real binary floating-point type, and the result has the corresponding complex type with real and imaginary parts real and imag. Unlike ‘real + I * imag’, this works even when infinities, NaNs and negative zeros are involved.