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Programming-Idioms

  • Python
  • Java

Idiom #32 Integer exponentiation by squaring

Create function exp which calculates (fast) the value x power n.
x and n are non-negative integers.

int exp(int x, int n){
	if(n==0)
		return 1;
	if(n==1)
		return x;
	if(n%2==0)
		return exp(x*x, n/2);
	else
		return x * exp(x*x, (n-1)/2);
}

Warning :
- type int quickly overflows
def exp(x, n):
        return x**n
unsigned int exp(unsigned int x,unsigned int n)
{
    if(n==0)
    {
        return 1;
    }
    if(n==1)
    {
        return x;
    }
    if(!(n%2))
    {
        return exp(x*x,n/2);
    }
    return x*exp(x*x,(n-1)/2);
}

New implementation...