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Programming-Idioms

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  • C++

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 pow(int x, int p)
{
  if (p == 0) return 1;
  if (p == 1) return x;

  int tmp = pow(x, p/2);
  if (p%2 == 0) return tmp * tmp;
  else return x * tmp * tmp;
}
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...