POWER

Syntax

power::=
Description of power.gif follows

Description of the illustration power.gif

Purpose

POWER returns m raised to the nth power. The base m and the exponent n can be any numbers, but if m is negative, then n must be an integer.

This function takes as arguments any numeric datatype or any nonnumeric datatype that can be implicitly converted to a numeric datatype. If any argument is BINARY_FLOAT or BINARY_DOUBLE, then the function returns BINARY_DOUBLE. Otherwise the function returns NUMBER.

See Also:

Table 2-11, "Implicit Type Conversion Matrix" for more information on implicit conversion

Examples

The following example returns 3 squared:

SELECT POWER(3,2) "Raised" FROM DUAL;

    Raised
----------
         9