Re: [q-lang-users] improvement to Q

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

ed...@ri... wrote:
> I hope other Q users don't boo me but, I would like to see x^n return
> integer results when x is an integer and n is a natural number. Maybe
> even return a rational when n is a negative integer.

The pow function already does this:

==> whos pow

pow             external function symbol defined in /usr/share/q/lib/clib.q
                pow X1 X2

==> pow 2 64
18446744073709551616

==> pow 2 (-2)
1%4

==> pow (2%3) (-2)
9%4

So if you prefer to have this as an operator, simply define:

public (^^) X Y @ (^);

X:Num^^Y:Num = Z where Z:Num = pow X Y;

If you want to have the operator work with floats as well, just add:

X:Num^^Y:Num = Z where Z:Num = X^Y;

A while ago there was a heated discussion over whether (^) should
provide that functionality but, as John already pointed out, it's really
better to have two different operations here, for various reasons.

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