The other way I would expect would be for it to return 5, which would be cosnistent with 33 being treated as an integer.

A return of "5" is what I would have expected. Afaict, the "33" is a Math::BigInt object, yet for some reason the module's author has apparently decided to implement some cross-class overloading and have a Math::BigFloat object returned when sqrt() is called with 'use bignum'. I guess, therefore, it might be possible (via some recoding of the bignum module) to have the overloaded ** operator return a Math::BigFloat object when the exponent is a negative integer.

I don't particularly like cross-class overloading ... it's a cute and clever thing to do, but one just doesn't know in advance what one is going to get in return. And there's no guarantee that DWIMness is being met, anyway. I would recommend that one uses Math::BigInt/Math::BigFloat instead of bignum.

(I could be way off with my diagnosis ... I haven't delved into the source to verify that I've got it right. I have made my assessments based on a few test programs that Devel::Peek::Dump()ed the various arguments and returns.)

Cheers,
Rob

In reply to Re^3: use bignum and exponentiation by syphilis
in thread use bignum and exponentiation by swampyankee

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