Thread: a to the power b (in C)

Before discussing the pow() function, let's look at this:

Code:

    int max=strlen(number);
    int test=0;
    int c=max-1;

What is the string number at this point in the code? How long is it?
What value is max?

C is a language where ordering of expressions affect their value. It is not mathematics where you can say "Let X be Y - 6", and then say "Now make Y be 8, what value is X?" - there may be programming languages that do allow that, but I have never worked in one that behaves that way. Thus, in C and most other programming languages, you must make sure everything you use to calculate something else has the correct value first.

I'm pretty sure that pow() does the right thing, but beware that if you are using integers, it may result in "interesting" rounding errors: 2 ^ 3 = 8, but pow(2, 3) may give 7.999999..., which when chopped to be an integer turns into 7 - which wasn't quite what you wanted, was it? You need to either use a simple loop to calculate the power, or ROUND the integer value by adding a small value before chopping the fraction part (e.g. (pow(x, y)+0.1) - that should be OK when using integer values for x and y, as long as x and y are reasonable size (no bigger than 2^31, such as 10 ^ 10, 8^10 or 4^15 for example).

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Mats

Also note that your program won't work with radix > 10. You're reading an integer, which may not contain letters, which you'll need to represent digits > 9. In programming, base 16 is pretty common, so you might want to think again about the overall structure of your program. If I were you, I would read the number as a string, write a simple function to retrieve its decimal value according to the given radix and then convert it to whatever radix the user supplied. Hence for a quick start, try writing a function that converts an int (in base 10) to a string that contains the corresponding representation in the given radix (i.e. the second part of your exercise).

On a sidenote, you should make sure that the input number respects the limits of its radix. What if the user supplies 69 and claims it to be in base 2? But you can safely skip this check until everything else works as expected.

Greets,
Philip

Originally Posted by Snafuist

Also note that your program won't work with radix > 10. You're reading an integer, which may not contain letters, which you'll need to represent digits > 9. In programming, base 16 is pretty common, so you might want to think again about the overall structure of your program. If I were you, I would read the number as a string, write a simple function to retrieve its decimal value according to the given radix and then convert it to whatever radix the user supplied. Hence for a quick start, try writing a function that converts an int (in base 10) to a string that contains the corresponding representation in the given radix (i.e. the second part of your exercise).

But number is a string, despite it's name. Wake up!

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Mats

Originally Posted by mblue

The problem is, the pow(a,b) function doesnt seem to work right.Ive even tried to define my own function but that didnt work either.

Of course it works right. You know you're a beginner, therefore you must know that chances are always greatest that you aren't doing something properly.

But number is a string, despite it's name. Wake up!

Doh!