issue 7006 - std.math.pow (integral, integral) crashes on negative exponents

[Patrick Schluter]

On Monday, 16 December 2019 at 15:33:33 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
> On Monday, 16 December 2019 at 15:13:44 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>> What I mean is that if i is 0.5, then you have to return a 
>> complex. So you have to add a special case for that.
>
> Simple work-around for the (-1)^^i:
>
> import std;
>
> void main() {
>     auto x = iota(10).map!(a => a % 2 ? 1 : -1);
> }

Why can't that pow(int, int) function implement that workaround 
and return 0 on all negative exponents and not crash otherwise?
That a function balks at mathematically nonsense values like 1/0 
or 0^^0 ok, it's expected. That it does so on a function that 
mathematically has valid parameters (even if the result can not 
be represented) is not normal. Nobody expects 2^^70 to crash with 
divide by 0 error unless explicitly requesting checked integers 
that catch overflows.