TITLE: Find all functions $f:\mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ satisfying $xf(y)-yf(x)=f\left( \frac yx\right)$
QUESTION [12 upvotes]: Find all functions $f:\mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ that satisfy the following equation:
$$xf(y)-yf(x)=f\left( \frac yx\right).$$

My work so far

If $x=1$ then $f(1)=0$

If $y=1$ then $f\left(\frac1x\right)=-f(x)$

If $y=\frac1x$ then $f\left(x^2\right)=\left(x+\frac1x\right)f(x)$

REPLY [7 votes]: This may not be the most efficient approach, but it works. I'll try to trim it down later.
You have already found that $f(x)=-f(\tfrac{1}{x})$, so then plugging in $x=-1$ shows that $f(-1)=0$. Next taking $y=-x$ in the original equation yields
$$xf(-x)+xf(x)=f(-1)=0,$$
which shows that $f(-x)=-f(x)$ for all $x\in\Bbb{R}$. It follows that for all nonzero $x\in\Bbb{R}$ we have
$$f(-\tfrac{1}{x})=f(x).$$
Now let $x,y\in\Bbb{R}$ be nonzero. Then writing out the original equation for $-\tfrac{1}{x}$ and $-\tfrac{1}{y}$ yields
$$-\tfrac{1}{x}f(-\tfrac{1}{y})+\tfrac{1}{y}f(-\tfrac{1}{x})=f(\tfrac{x}{y})=-f(\tfrac{y}{x})=-xf(y)+yf(x).$$
But on the left hand side we can use the fact that $f(-\tfrac{1}{x})=f(x)$ to get
$$-\tfrac{1}{x}f(y)+\tfrac{1}{y}f(x)=-xf(y)+yf(x).$$
Rearranging terms shows that for all nonzero $x,y\in\Bbb{R}$ with $x,y\neq\pm1$ we have
$$\frac{f(x)}{x-\tfrac{1}{x}}=\frac{f(y)}{y-\tfrac{1}{y}},$$
from which it follows that there is some constant $c\in\Bbb{R}$ such that
$$f(x)=c(x-\tfrac1x),$$
for all nonzero $x\in\Bbb{R}$, as we already saw that $f(\pm1)=0$.  Plugging in $y=0$ shows that also $f(0)=0$, and so every such function $f$ is (for some $c\in\Bbb{R}$) of the form
$$f(x)=\left\{\begin{array}{ll}0&\text{ if }x=0\\c(x-\tfrac{1}{x})&\text{ otherwise }\end{array}\right.$$