tchrist@convex.com (Tom Christiansen) (11/23/90)
On a Sun, these expressions return these values: (-1) ** 1 1 (-1) ** 2 -1 (-1) ** 3 1 (-1) ** 4 -1 which is all well and good, and just as you want and expect. However, on a Convex, I get this happy message out STDERR: mth$d_pow: [303] power undefined with negative base and a value of positive 1 is always returned. Why the inconsistent behavior? How come Suns do it right and we don't? I would blame our pow() function, but I'm wondering why Sun's is better. (Or is it?) Yes, I know I should write (-1) ** $n as (($n % 2) ? -1 : 1) and just stay clear of the ** operator, but that doesn't really answer my question. --tom