What is the Kotlin exponent operator

Question

What is the exponent operator in Kotlin. I assumed it would be ** but it seems to throw up an error in my code.

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Answer 1

As other answers have mentioned there is no exponent operator in Kotlin/Java. However, it is not advisable to use the extension function available in Double and Float for performing exponentiation of Long. Here's why: Conversion of Double back to Long after exponentiation can lead to rounding of number due to precision limits of Double.

val EXP = 38

println(3.toDouble().pow(EXP).toLong())
// 1350851717672992000

println(3.toDouble().pow(EXP))
// 1.350851717672992E18 

But the actual answer was 1350851717672992089. Thus, I'd advise you to use BigIntegers to perform exponentiation. The same can also be used for fast modulo exponentiation. Here's our final pow(base, exp) function:

fun pow(n: Long, exp: Int): Long{
    return BigInteger.valueOf(n).pow(exp).toLong()
}