[Feature Request] Add an Exponentiation Operator

[DartBot]

This issue was originally filed by reeves....@gmail.com

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Add a built-in exponentiation operator to Dart.

It could look like Python's ** operator.

This will contribute to the readability of Dart and the furtherance of its goals to be 'simple' and 'familiar'.

After all, you don't have to say, "multiply(x, y)" to multiply two numbers. Why should I have to say "pow(x, y)"? This is verbose, contrary to Dart's goals, and inconsistent with related Dart syntax.

[kasperl]

Added Area-Language, Triaged labels.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by incr...@gmail.com

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The exponential operator may be good idea (I'm not against it), but arguments that have been mentioned in the request are not relevant. Which favorite math function will deserve to have its own operator and which not?

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by reeves.r...@gmail.com

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To answer your question, pow() is the only math function that is lacking its own operator because it's the last commonly used mathematical hyperoperator without one.

Dart has an operator for the first 3 hyperoperators: successor (++), addition(+), and multiplication (*), but arbitrarily lacks the 4th (an exponentiation operator) which would be last operator needed by nearly any programmer.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by mario.p...@gmail.com

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If exponentiation gets its own operator, shouldn't the complementing operation (taking the n-th root) get an operator, too?

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by mario.plon...@gmail.com

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Also, duplicate: https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/detail?id=1859

[kevmoo]

Added Duplicate label.
Marked as being merged into #1859.