[q-lang-users] Exponentiation operator

[Albert G. <Dr....@t-...>]

The built-in ^ operator currently returns a floating point value in all 
cases. That makes sense, because it is supposed to work with negative 
and fractional exponents too, so this seems to be the only way to make ^ 
work consistently. For the case of integer bases and positive integer 
exponent there's the pow function which returns an Int value.

Now I'm reconsidering this. Maybe it would be better if ^ actually 
returned an Int where this is possible, and a Float otherwise? (This 
wouldn't be possible in a language with static typing like Haskell, of 
course, but Q doesn't have this problem.) A similar issue arises with 
the definition of ^ for Rational. Should Rational ^ Int be a Rational? 
Or a Float, like Rational ^ Rational and Rational ^ Float are?

Comments appreciated. :)

Albert

-- 
Dr. Albert Gr"af
Dept. of Music-Informatics, University of Mainz, Germany
Email:  Dr....@t-..., ag...@mu...
WWW:    http://www.musikinformatik.uni-mainz.de/ag