On Sun, 23 Nov 2014 19:48:50 -0600, Skip Montanaro wrote: > I want to add one more thing to the other responses. People new to > Python often seem unaware that being an interpreted language, often the > best way to figure something out is to simply try it at the interpreter > prompt. The OP saw "var ** 2" in done code. The most obvious thing to me > would have been to type > > var = 42 > var ** 2 > > and see what happened. It's unlikely to trigger a nuclear meltdown, or > even crash the interpreter.
Hmmm, it appears that ** is a no-op that always returns its left hand argument: py> 0**2 0 py> 0**7 0 py> 0**99 0 Of course, that could be a coincidence, better try a few other things: py> 1**57 1 py> 57**1 57 py> -1**12 -1 :-) -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list