Semantics of ^^

[Don]

Phil Deets wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:42:33 -0500, Bill Baxter <wbaxter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Don <nospam at nospam.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> * If both x and y are integers, and y > 0,  x^^y is equivalent to
>>>   { auto u = x; foreach(i; 1..y) { u *= x; } return u; }
>>> * If both x and y are integers, and y < 0, an integer divide error 
>>> occurs,
>>> regardless of the value of x. This error is detected at compile time, if
>>> possible.
>>
>> Can you explain why you think that's necessary?  Seems like going too
>> far towards a nanny compiler for no particularly good reason.
>>
>> The fact that 2^^-1 isn't particularly useful doesn't make it
>> particularly error prone.  No more so than integer division when the
>> person meant floating point division.  I just find it unexpected that
>> a language would single out exponentiation for this kind of treatment.
>>
> 
> I was also wondering about this. If it can't be detected at compile 
> time, is the result 0?

No, it's a compile-time error.