c/numeric/fenv

The floating-point environment is the set of floating-point status flags and control modes supported by the implementation. It is thread-local, each thread inherits the initial state of its floating-point environment from the parent thread. Floating-point operations modify the floating-point status flags to indicate abnormal results or auxiliary information. The state of floating-point control modes affects the outcomes of some floating-point operations.

The floating-point environment access and modification is only meaningful when is set to. Otherwise the implementation is free to assume that floating-point control modes are always the default ones and that floating-point status flags are never tested or modified. In practice, few current compilers, such as HP aCC, Oracle Studio, and IBM XL, support the explicitly, but most compilers allow meaningful access to the floating-point environment anyway.