min()

(Macro) Calculates the minimum of two numbers.

Syntax

min(x,y)

Parameters

x: the first number; may be any number or numeric expression.

y: the second number; may be any number or numeric expression.

Returns

The smaller of the two numbers.

Example

sensVal = min(sensVal, 100); // assigns sensVal to the smaller of sensVal or 100
                             // ensuring that it never gets above 100.

Note

Perhaps counter-intuitively, max() is often used to constrain the lower end of a variable’s range, while min() is used to constrain the upper end of the range.

Warning

Because of the way min() is implemented, avoid using other functions inside the parentheses. It may lead to incorrect results:

min(a++, 100);   // avoid this - yields incorrect results

a++;            // use this instead -
min(a, 100);    // keep other operations outside min()

Arduino Compatibility

The Maple version of min() is compatible with Arduino.

See Also

• max()
• constrain()

License and Attribution

Portions of this page were adapted from the Arduino Reference Documentation, which is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.