Powx

Powx is a naming convention used in some programming contexts to denote a function that computes a number raised to a power. It is not a standardized mathematical operator; the canonical power operation is typically exposed by a function named pow in many languages. As a result, powx appears in various codebases and libraries as either a wrapper around a general power function or as an optimized specialization for certain cases.

Common usage patterns include two main variants. For integer exponents, powx(x, n) is often implemented using exponentiation by squaring, yielding x^n with a time complexity of O(log n) and typically assuming n is a nonnegative integer. For real-valued exponents, powx may delegate to the language’s standard power function (or compute exp(n * log x)) to handle fractional or negative exponents. In numerical or graphics libraries, powx can also be provided as a vectorized or SIMD-enabled version that operates on arrays element-wise.

Practical considerations include domain and precision. When the base x is nonpositive and the exponent is not an integer, the result may be undefined or require complex arithmetic in some environments. Because powx is not standardized, its exact behavior, performance characteristics, and available overloads depend on the language and library in use.

See also: pow, exponentiation, exponentiation by squaring, logarithm, exponential function.