How does C compute sin() and other math functions?

Question

In GNU libm, the implementation of sin is system-dependent. Therefore you can find the implementation, for each platform, somewhere in the appropriate subdirectory of sysdeps.

One directory includes an implementation in C, contributed by IBM. Since October 2011, this is the code that actually runs when you call sin() on a typical x86-64 Linux system. It is apparently faster than the fsin assembly instruction. Source code: sysdeps/ieee754/dbl-64/s_sin.c, look for __sin (double x).

This code is very complex. No one software algorithm is as fast as possible and also accurate over the whole range of x values, so the library implements several different algorithms, and its first job is to look at x and decide which algorithm to use.

• When x is very very close to 0, sin(x) == x is the right answer.

• A bit further out, sin(x) uses the familiar Taylor series. However, this is only accurate near 0, so...

• When the angle is more than about 7°, a different algorithm is used, computing Taylor-series approximations for both sin(x) and cos(x), then using values from a precomputed table to refine the approximation.

• When |x| > 2, none of the above algorithms would work, so the code starts by computing some value closer to 0 that can be fed to sin or cos instead.

• There's yet another branch to deal with x being a NaN or infinity.

This code uses some numerical hacks I've never seen before, though for all I know they might be well-known among floating-point experts. Sometimes a few lines of code would take several paragraphs to explain. For example, these two lines

double t = (x * hpinv + toint);
double xn = t - toint;

are used (sometimes) in reducing x to a value close to 0 that differs from x by a multiple of π/2, specifically xn × π/2. The way this is done without division or branching is rather clever. But there's no comment at all!

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Older 32-bit versions of GCC/glibc used the fsin instruction, which is surprisingly inaccurate for some inputs. There's a fascinating blog post illustrating this with just 2 lines of code.

fdlibm's implementation of sin in pure C is much simpler than glibc's and is nicely commented. Source code: fdlibm/s_sin.c and fdlibm/k_sin.c

Functions like sine and cosine are implemented in microcode inside microprocessors. Intel chips, for example, have assembly instructions for these. A C compiler will generate code that calls these assembly instructions. (By contrast, a Java compiler will not. Java evaluates trig functions in software rather than hardware, and so it runs much slower.)

Chips do not use Taylor series to compute trig functions, at least not entirely. First of all they use CORDIC, but they may also use a short Taylor series to polish up the result of CORDIC or for special cases such as computing sine with high relative accuracy for very small angles. For more explanation, see this StackOverflow answer.

OK kiddies, time for the pros.... This is one of my biggest complaints with inexperienced software engineers. They come in calculating transcendental functions from scratch (using Taylor's series) as if nobody had ever done these calculations before in their lives. Not true. This is a well defined problem and has been approached thousands of times by very clever software and hardware engineers and has a well defined solution. Basically, most of the transcendental functions use Chebyshev Polynomials to calculate them. As to which polynomials are used depends on the circumstances. First, the bible on this matter is a book called "Computer Approximations" by Hart and Cheney. In that book, you can decide if you have a hardware adder, multiplier, divider, etc, and decide which operations are fastest. e.g. If you had a really fast divider, the fastest way to calculate sine might be P1(x)/P2(x) where P1, P2 are Chebyshev polynomials. Without the fast divider, it might be just P(x), where P has much more terms than P1 or P2....so it'd be slower. So, first step is to determine your hardware and what it can do. Then you choose the appropriate combination of Chebyshev polynomials (is usually of the form cos(ax) = aP(x) for cosine for example, again where P is a Chebyshev polynomial). Then you decide what decimal precision you want. e.g. if you want 7 digits precision, you look that up in the appropriate table in the book I mentioned, and it will give you (for precision = 7.33) a number N = 4 and a polynomial number 3502. N is the order of the polynomial (so it's p4.x^4 + p3.x^3 + p2.x^2 + p1.x + p0), because N=4. Then you look up the actual value of the p4,p3,p2,p1,p0 values in the back of the book under 3502 (they'll be in floating point). Then you implement your algorithm in software in the form: (((p4.x + p3).x + p2).x + p1).x + p0 ....and this is how you'd calculate cosine to 7 decimal places on that hardware.

Note that most hardware implementations of transcendental operations in an FPU usually involve some microcode and operations like this (depends on the hardware). Chebyshev polynomials are used for most transcendentals but not all. e.g. Square root is faster to use a double iteration of Newton raphson method using a lookup table first. Again, that book "Computer Approximations" will tell you that.

If you plan on implmementing these functions, I'd recommend to anyone that they get a copy of that book. It really is the bible for these kinds of algorithms. Note that there are bunches of alternative means for calculating these values like cordics, etc, but these tend to be best for specific algorithms where you only need low precision. To guarantee the precision every time, the chebyshev polynomials are the way to go. Like I said, well defined problem. Has been solved for 50 years now.....and thats how it's done.

Now, that being said, there are techniques whereby the Chebyshev polynomials can be used to get a single precision result with a low degree polynomial (like the example for cosine above). Then, there are other techniques to interpolate between values to increase the accuracy without having to go to a much larger polynomial, such as "Gal's Accurate Tables Method". This latter technique is what the post referring to the ACM literature is referring to. But ultimately, the Chebyshev Polynomials are what are used to get 90% of the way there.

Enjoy.

For sin specifically, using Taylor expansion would give you:

sin(x) := x - x^3/3! + x^5/5! - x^7/7! + ... (1)

you would keep adding terms until either the difference between them is lower than an accepted tolerance level or just for a finite amount of steps (faster, but less precise). An example would be something like:

float sin(float x)
{
  float res=0, pow=x, fact=1;
  for(int i=0; i<5; ++i)
  {
    res+=pow/fact;
    pow*=-1*x*x;
    fact*=(2*(i+1))*(2*(i+1)+1);
  }

  return res;
}

Note: (1) works because of the aproximation sin(x)=x for small angles. For bigger angles you need to calculate more and more terms to get acceptable results. You can use a while argument and continue for a certain accuracy:

double sin (double x){
    int i = 1;
    double cur = x;
    double acc = 1;
    double fact= 1;
    double pow = x;
    while (fabs(acc) > .00000001 &&   i < 100){
        fact *= ((2*i)*(2*i+1));
        pow *= -1 * x*x; 
        acc =  pow / fact;
        cur += acc;
        i++;
    }
    return cur;

}

Yes, there are software algorithms for calculating sin too. Basically, calculating these kind of stuff with a digital computer is usually done using numerical methods like approximating the Taylor series representing the function.

Numerical methods can approximate functions to an arbitrary amount of accuracy and since the amount of accuracy you have in a floating number is finite, they suit these tasks pretty well.

Use Taylor series and try to find relation between terms of the series so you don't calculate things again and again

Here is an example for cosinus:

double cosinus(double x, double prec)
{
    double t, s ;
    int p;
    p = 0;
    s = 1.0;
    t = 1.0;
    while(fabs(t/s) > prec)
    {
        p++;
        t = (-t * x * x) / ((2 * p - 1) * (2 * p));
        s += t;
    }
    return s;
}

using this we can get the new term of the sum using the already used one (we avoid the factorial and x^2p)

Concerning trigonometric function like sin(), cos(),tan() there has been no mention, after 5 years, of an important aspect of high quality trig functions: Range reduction.

An early step in any of these functions is to reduce the angle, in radians, to a range of a 2*π interval. But π is irrational so simple reductions like x = remainder(x, 2*M_PI) introduce error as M_PI, or machine pi, is an approximation of π. So, how to do x = remainder(x, 2*π)?

Early libraries used extended precision or crafted programming to give quality results but still over a limited range of double. When a large value was requested like sin(pow(2,30)), the results were meaningless or 0.0 and maybe with an error flag set to something like TLOSS total loss of precision or PLOSS partial loss of precision.

Good range reduction of large values to an interval like -π to π is a challenging problem that rivals the challenges of the basic trig function, like sin(), itself.

A good report is Argument reduction for huge arguments: Good to the last bit (1992). It covers the issue well: discusses the need and how things were on various platforms (SPARC, PC, HP, 30+ other) and provides a solution algorithm the gives quality results for all double from -DBL_MAX to DBL_MAX.

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If the original arguments are in degrees, yet may be of a large value, use fmod() first for improved precision. A good fmod() will introduce no error and so provide excellent range reduction.

// sin(degrees2radians(x))
sin(degrees2radians(fmod(x, 360.0))); // -360.0 < fmod(x,360) < +360.0

Various trig identities and remquo() offer even more improvement. Sample: sind()