What is the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a primitive of a function

Solution 1:

I assume that by the primitive of $f$, you mean the antiderivative of $f$: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_function.

To answer your question:

Yes, if $f$ is continuous on $[a, b]$, then the indefinite integral $F$ defined by $F(z) = \int_a^z f(x)dx$ is a primitive (or antiderivative) of $f$.

If $f$ is not continuous, $f$ may still have a primitive, but there's no general rule as to how to find it. See this page on wikipedia for more info on primitives of non-continuous functions.

Hope this helped!