Thanks.  But the mystery deepens. I found a web page mentioning an ANSI standard:

http://www.thinkage.com/expl/c/lib/pow.html

|  <math.h>
|  z = pow( x, y );
|  Description:
|  "pow" returns "x" to the power "y". If "x" and "y" are both zero, or if "x" is
|  non-positive and "y" is not an integer, "pow" return -HUGE_VAL and sets
|  "errno" to EDO

I have little understanding of this stuff, but pov seems to be doing something
different.


Ron Parker wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Jan 2000 16:17:16 -0500, Greg M. Johnson wrote:
>
> >Again, I hound this point not to attack the giants whose shoulder we stand on--pov
> >developers--but to have fun at solving a mathematical mystery : what IS pov doing?
>
>   call the C function pow(x,y) and return its result
>   directly.
>
> Presumably, pow(x,y) itself does something when presented
> with invalid parameters, but what that is isn't specified
> in the MSVC documentation.  It may be specified in the ANSI
> C spec; I haven't checked.
>
> --
> These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
> The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
> My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

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