Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!dalcs!garfield!john13
From: john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Power operator?
Message-ID: <4370@garfield.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 88 15:14:20 GMT
References: <11169@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell)
Distribution: na
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's
Lines: 21

In article <11169@brl-adm.ARPA> V4039%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Stan Horwitz) writes:
>The question still stands.  Why does C have no symbol to serve as a power
>operator.  There are so many symbols to use, and it would be easy to implement.

Because there are *so many* different ways to implement it, each optimal for
specific cases.

2 ^ (int) with shifts; this is what I use most frequently and there _is_ an
operator for it (<< and >>).

(int) ^ (int) with various algorithms depending on the size of the exponent.

(double) ^ (double) as pow() does it I rarely use, but you can see it requires 
a different approach to deal with the fractional exponent.

John
-- 
"Operating systems room, prepare for shutdown."
"I never thought I'd be HAPPY to see our ratings do DOWN!"
		-- lots of these were sprinkled throughout the 
		   last broadcast episode of _Max_Headroom_