Exponential operator

[Jimbob]

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote in message 
news:h5hvhh$if8$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Jimbob Wrote:
>
>>bearophile:
>> > And A^^3 may be faster than A*A*A when A isn't a simple number, so 
>> > always
>> > replacing the
>> > power with mults may be bad.
>>
>> It wont be on x86. Multiplication has a latency of around 4 cycles 
>> whether
>> int or float, so x*x*x will clock around 12 cycles. The main instruction
>> needed for pow, F2XM1, costs anywhere from 50 cycles to 120, depending on
>> the cpu. And then you need to do a bunch of other stuff to make F2XM1 
>> handle
>> different bases.
>
> I don't understand what you mean.
> But "when A isn't a simple number" means for example when A is a matrix.

Oops, my brain didnt parse what you meant by "simple number".