ISO C99 introduces support for complex numbers in C. This is done
with a new type qualifier, complex
. It is a keyword if and only
if `complex.h' has been included. There are three complex types,
corresponding to the three real types: float complex
,
double complex
, and long double complex
.
To construct complex numbers you need a way to indicate the imaginary part of a number. There is no standard notation for an imaginary floating point constant. Instead, `complex.h' defines two macros that can be used to create complex numbers.
_Complex_I
gives a
complex number whose value is purely imaginary. You can use this to
construct complex constants:
@math{3.0 + 4.0i} = 3.0 + 4.0 * _Complex_I
Note that _Complex_I * _Complex_I
has the value -1
, but
the type of that value is complex
.
_Complex_I
is a bit of a mouthful. `complex.h' also defines
a shorter name for the same constant.
_Complex_I
. Most of the
time it is preferable. However, it causes problems if you want to use
the identifier I
for something else. You can safely write
#include <complex.h> #undef I
if you need I
for your own purposes. (In that case we recommend
you also define some other short name for _Complex_I
, such as
J
.)
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