[Noob Question] Raising a number to a power

Hey there. So I'm making a calculator plugin and am having a bit of trouble on raising a number to a power. Here's the current code for power part (please try to refrain from laughing):

Code:java

 
if (cmd.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("calculate"))
{
if (args.length == 3)
{
if (args[1].equalsIgnoreCase("^"))
{
 
int num = 0;
int pow = 0;
int answer = 0;
String num1 = args[0];
num = Integer.parseInt(num1);
String pow1 = args[2];
pow = Integer.parseInt(pow1);
 
 
 
}

Yeah.... so as you can see I the numbers ready (the command should look like this /calculate (# here) ^ (power here)) however I have no idea what to do with them in order to raise the number (arg[0] or num) to the power (arg[2] or pow). Thanks!

 

To do a calculation for exponents just do this:

Code:

Int i = 1;
while(i < pow){
i++;
num = num*num;
}
answer=num;

If I'm thinking about that correctly in my head, it should work properly. You may need to set i to equal 0 instead of 1, but I think the way I did it is correct.

You may want to do some type of logic to verify that your numbers are in fact numbers before you reach the calculation step. If you do not do this you'll end up getting a Java error stating that your string can't be converted to an integer if anything other than an integer is entered. (Eg. 1.4 or "Cat"). If you want to be able to support decimals, I would suggest using Double as your declaration for the num variable. As for the exponent, in order to do decimal exponents you would likely need much more code than what I've shown you above. Let me know if you do need to have decimals in your exponents and I'll do a little more research as to how to do this.

-John

 

Math.pow(num, pow)

 

This is obviously MUCH better than my answer

 

Yea the Java libraries do exist for a reason

 

Gopaintman I'm experience with the logic and syntax of Java, but do not know about many libraries so I end up doing things like this all the time when there's a simple 1 line solution to my problem

-John

 

lol. It was funny how KoolSource was like typin' away then Gopaintman gave a simple one line answer.

But yeah, lesson learned, check Java's APIs for widely used things.

 

Haha, thanks for the simple answer and thanks to everyone else for the help!

 

Anytime!