Python Mystery Powers

Posted by Mike Naberezny in Python

Beginning Python programmers can be easily confused by the numeric operator for exponents. In many languages, the statement:
```
print(2^2)
```
Will return 4, or 2 raised to the power of 2. However, the ^ operator in Python has a completely different meaning. It actually returns the bitwise exclusive OR of the two numbers. For the example of 2^2, the number 0 will be returned instead of the expected 4.

To express exponents in Python, use either:
```
x = pow(a,b)
x = a**b
```

This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2005 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Python.