gamma (3)
Leading comments
Copyright 2002 Walter Harms (walter.harms@informatik.uni-oldenburg.de) %%%LICENSE_START(GPL_NOVERSION_ONELINE) Distributed under GPL %%%LICENSE_END Modified 2003-11-18, aeb: historical remarks
NAME
gamma, gammaf, gammal - (logarithm of the) gamma functionSYNOPSIS
#include <math.h>
double gamma(double x);
float gammaf(float x);
long double gammal(long double x);
Link with -lm.
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
gamma():
- _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
- _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600
DESCRIPTION
These functions are deprecated: instead, use either the tgamma(3) or the lgamma(3) functions, as appropriate.For the definition of the Gamma function, see tgamma(3).
*BSD version
The libm in 4.4BSD and some versions of FreeBSD had a gamma() function that computes the Gamma function, as one would expect.glibc version
Glibc has a gamma() function that is equivalent to lgamma(3) and computes the natural logarithm of the Gamma function.RETURN VALUE
See lgamma(3).ERRORS
See lgamma(3).ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).| Interface | Attribute | Value |
| gamma(), gammaf(), gammal() | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe race:signgam |
CONFORMING TO
Because of historical variations in behavior across systems, this function is not specified in any standard.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(3), 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(3), the "true gamma" function.