POWER

Syntax

Description of the illustration ''power.gif''

Purpose

POWER returns n2 raised to the n1 power. The base n2 and the exponent n1 can be any numbers, but if n2 is negative, then n1 must be an integer.

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

See Also:

Table 3-10, "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