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From: horstman@mathcs.sjsu.edu (Cay Horstmann)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: taking powers with "^"
Message-ID: <1991Jun22.144159.18138@mathcs.sjsu.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 91 14:41:59 GMT
References: <1920003@hpsad.HP.COM>
Organization: San Jose State University - Math/CS Dept.
Lines: 15

In article <1920003@hpsad.HP.COM> sdw@hpsad.HP.COM (Steve Warwick) writes:
>when ATT built the complex class, C++ became my favourite language for numerical processing and analysis. however, I'm still looking for one little friend,
>the power symbol  "^" as in 10^5, x^y. Can/Has someone defined a set of 
>friend functions for integer/double/complex numbers ?
>
There is a good reason that ^ is usually not used for exponentiation. Its
precedence is wrong. For example,
     y = x ^ 2 + 1 

is actually
     y = x ^ (2+1)

which is not very intuitive and can lead to frustrating errors.

Cay