Operator ^ (Exponentiate)

Raises a numeric expression to some power

Syntax
   Declare Operator ^ ( ByRef lhs As Double, ByRef rhs As Double ) As Double

Usage
   result = lhs ^ rhs

Parameters
   lhs
      The left-hand side base expression.
   rhs
      The right-hand side exponent expression.

Return Value
   Returns the exponentiation of a base expression raised to some exponent.

Description
   Operator ^ (Exponentiate) returns the result of a base expression (lhs) 
   raised to some exponent expression (rhs). ^ works with double float 
   numbers only, operands of other types will be converted into double 
   before performing the exponentiation. Exponent of a fractional value (1/
   n) is the same as taking nth root from the base, for example, 2 ^ (1/3) 
   is the cube root of 2.

   Neither of the operands are modified in any way.

   This operator can be overloaded for user-defined types.

   This operation is for Double precision data types only (53 significant 
   bits), and suffers from some inaccuracies in the least significant bits 
   of the number, especially when converting from other data types (e.g. 
   64-bit data types).  This inaccuracy is particularly noticeable when the 
   result is expected to be an exact number, but then finding the result is 
   out by a very small amount.  For this reason, never assume that an 
   exponentiation expression will be exactly equal to the value expected, 
   but rather close within some small amount of error.  Be wary of using 
   rounding methods such as Int and Fix on the result: if you expect the 
   result to be an integer value, then there's a chance that it might be 
   slightly lower, and will round down to a value that is one less than 
   expected.

   This operator exists in C/C++ with a different meaning; in C/C++ it 
   performs a Bitwise Xor.

Example
   Dim As Double n
   Input "Please enter a positive number: ", n
   Print 
   Print n;" squared is "; n ^ 2
   Print "The fifth root of "; n;" is "; n ^ 0.2
   Sleep

Output:

   Please enter a positive number: 3.4

    3.4 squared Is 11.56
   The fifth root of 3.4 Is 1.27730844458754

Dialect Differences
   * In the -lang qb dialect, this operator cannot be overloaded.

Differences from QB
   * None

See also
   * Mathematical Functions

