non-built-in exponentiation (Re: What should be added to C)

[VLD/VMB]

I wrote
	exponent % 2
because that was what I meant.  If your compiler cannot optimize
	expr % 2 == 0
to use a low-order bit test (two's complement only!), then perhaps
you should get somebody to improve your compiler.  (The SVR2 VAX
PCC generates remarkably ugly code for this, by the way.)

I'm a software engineer, not a speed phreak; I prefer code to be
correct regardless of any particular machine architecture.

The algorithm I posted is so much more efficient than the "obvious"
method that concerns for microefficiency are relatively unimportant.