Difference between ECMAScript 2016 exponentiation operator and Math.pow()

Question

What is the benefit to using the ECMAScript 2016 exponentiation operator over the current Math.pow()? In other words, besides reducing key strokes, what is the difference between

Math.pow(2, 2) => 4 and 2 ** 2 => 4

Marra

From a search around, it appears to be for no other reason than it looks better. There's also the potential for using the **= operator too. – Demilitarize

Answer 1

None. As you can read in the ES7 spec, both Math.pow and the ** exponentation operator cast their arguments/operands to numbers and use the very same algorithm to determine the result.

Addendum: this changed with the introduction of the BigInt type in ES2020, whose values are only supported by operators (including **) but not the Math object.

Incommode

None provided that no one's mucked about with Math or Math.pow. :-) – Dowser

Answer 2

Late to the party -- I just wanted to add that as much as there is no difference between the two ways, I recently came to realize that the ** exponentiation operator isn't supported in Internet Explorer, so developers that are interested in extensive cross-browser support for their applications, may prefer to choose the Math.pow(...) over the exponentiation operator.

Zielsdorf

Answer 3

Math.pow(2,2) === 2**2; // FALSE

Math.pow(99,99);
99 ** 99;

Result:

3.697296376497263e+197

3.697296376497268e+197

Avruch

Either this was fixed since then or it's implementation-dependent, because I just checked in my browser console (Firefox on macOS) and I get the same value for both of those. – Klimt

It was fixed. See bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=5848 for example – Villosity