Exponentiation is a mathematical operation, written as bn, involving two numbers, the base b and the exponent (or index or power) n. When n is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication; in other words, a product of n factors, each of which is equal to b (the product itself can also be called power):
just as multiplication by a positive integer corresponds to repeated addition:
The exponent is usually shown as a superscript to the right of the base. The exponentiation bn can be read as: b raised to the n-th power, b raised to the power of n, or possibly b raised to the exponent of n, most briefly as b to the n. Some exponents have their own pronunciation: for example, b2 is usually read as b squared and b3 as b cubed.
The power bn can be defined also when n is a negative integer, for nonzero b. No natural extension to all real b and n exists, but when the base b is a positive real number, bn can be defined for all real and even complex exponents n via the exponential function ez. Trigonometric functions can be expressed in terms of complex exponentiation.
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In computing, a newline, also known as a line break or end-of-line (EOL) marker, is a special character or sequence of characters signifying the end of a line of text. The name comes from the fact that the next character after the newline will appear on a new line—that is, on the next line below the text immediately preceding the newline. The actual codes representing a newline vary across operating systems, which can be a problem when exchanging text files between systems with different newline representations.
There is also some confusion whether newlines terminate or separate lines. If a newline is considered a separator, there will be no newline after the last line of a file. The general convention on most systems is to add a newline even after the last line, i.e. to treat newline as a line terminator. Some programs have problems processing the last line of a file if it is not newline terminated. Conversely, programs that expect newline to be used as a separator will interpret a final newline as starting a new (empty) line.
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