Powers

^(x, y)

Exponentiation operator.

If x and y are integers, the result may overflow. To enter numbers in scientific notation, use Float64 literals such as 1.2e3 rather than 1.2 * 10^3.

If y is an Int literal (e.g. 2 in x^2 or -3 in x^-3), the Julia code x^y is transformed by the compiler to Base.literal_pow(^, x, Val(y)), to enable compile-time specialization on the value of the exponent. (As a default fallback we have Base.literal_pow(^, x, Val(y)) = ^(x,y), where usually ^ == Base.^ unless ^ has been defined in the calling namespace.) If y is a negative integer literal, then Base.literal_pow transforms the operation to inv(x)^-y by default, where -y is positive.

See also exp2, <<.

Examples

julia> 3^5
243

julia> 3^-1  # uses Base.literal_pow
0.3333333333333333

julia> p = -1;

julia> 3^p
ERROR: DomainError with -1:
Cannot raise an integer x to a negative power -1.
[...]

julia> 3.0^p
0.3333333333333333

julia> 10^19 > 0  # integer overflow
false

julia> big(10)^19 == 1e19
true