ceil function

Synopsis

$ceil(number)

Technical

ceil() calculates the smallest integral value greater than or equal to number, using the C library's ceil() operation. It rounds toward positive infinity: 3.2 becomes 4, while -3.2 becomes -3. An already integral value remains unchanged. See floor() for rounding toward negative infinity.

The normal rules about number arguments apply. The first argument word is converted with atof(), accepting decimal fractions and scientific notation; additional words are ignored. Nonnumeric input converts to zero, and a numeric prefix can be accepted even when followed by nonnumeric text. Missing input returns the empty string.

Returns

The result is integral in value but is calculated as a C double and returned as a string using %.50g, not converted to an integer type. Ordinary whole-number results have no decimal point; very large values may use scientific notation. The floating_point_math and floating_point_precision settings do not affect this function.

The result retains floating-point precision limits, and may exceed the range of EPIC's integer arithmetic. Rounding happens after conversion to double, so digits already lost during conversion cannot be recovered. The library preserves infinities and returns NaN for NaN input.

The shared math wrapper checks errno after the operation: a reported domain error returns DOM, a reported range error returns RANGE, and another reported error returns the empty string. The standard ceil() operation defines no such errors for ordinary inputs. The wrapper clears errno after argument conversion and does not validate conversion errors or check floating-point exception flags.

Examples

Source

source/functions.c registers ceil and implements function_ceil through the shared math-function and error-return macros. include/functions.h defines argument conversion and formatting. The C/POSIX ceiling specification defines rounding and floating-point results.