gamma
Prev  Section 3  Next

Name

gamma, gammaf, gammal — (logarithm of the) gamma function

Synopsis

#include <math.h>
double gamma( double   x);
float gammaf( float   x);
long double gammal( long double   x);
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
gamma(), gammaf(), gammal():
_BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
[Note] Note

Link with −lm.

DESCRIPTION

For the definition of the Gamma function, see tgamma(3).

*BSD version

4.4BSD and FreeBSD libm have a gamma() function that computes the Gamma function, as one would expect.

glibc version

Glibc has a gamma() function that is equivalent to lgamma() and computes the natural logarithm of the Gamma function. (This is for compatibility reasons only. Don't use this function.)

CONFORMING TO

4.2BSD. Compatible with previous mistakes.

NOTES

History

4.2BSD had a gamma() that computed ln(|Gamma(|x|)|), leaving the sign of Gamma(|x|) in the external integer signgam. In 4.3BSD the name was changed to lgamma(), and the man page promises

"At some time in the future the name gamma will be rehabilitated and used for the Gamma function"

This did indeed happen in 4.4BSD, where gamma() computes the Gamma function (with no effect on signgam). However, this came too late, and we now have tgamma(), the "true gamma" function.

SEE ALSO

lgamma(3), signgam(3), tgamma(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 2.79 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


  Copyright 2002 Walter Harms (walter.harmsinformatik.uni-oldenburg.de)
Distributed under GPL

Modified 2003-11-18, aeb: historical remarks
Prev  Up  Next
fwide  Home  gcvt