how to get exponents without using the math.pow for java

Question

This is my program

// ************************************************************
    // PowersOf2.java
    //
    // Print out as many powers of 2 as the user requests
    //
    // ************************************************************

    import java.util.Scanner;

    public class PowersOf2 {

    public static void main(String[] args)

    {
        int numPowersOf2; //How many powers of 2 to compute
        int nextPowerOf2 = 1; //Current power of 2
        int exponent= 1;
        double x;

         //Exponent for current power of 2 -- this
        //also serves as a counter for the loop Scanner

        Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("How many powers of 2 would you like printed?");
        numPowersOf2 = scan.nextInt();
        System.out.println ("There will be " + numPowersOf2 + " powers of 2 printed");
        //initialize exponent -- the first thing printed is 2 to the what?

    while( exponent <= numPowersOf2)
        {
        double x1 = Math.pow(2, exponent);
        System.out.println("2^" + exponent + " = " + x1);
                exponent++;
        }   
//print out current power of 2
//find next power of 2 -- how do you get this from the last one?
//increment exponent

    }
}

The thing is that I am not allowed to use the math.pow method, I need to find another way to get the correct answer in the while loop.

Answer 1

Powers of 2 can simply be computed by Bit Shift Operators

int exponent = ...
int powerOf2 = 1 << exponent;

Even for the more general form, you should not compute an exponent by "multiplying n times". Instead, you could do Exponentiation by squaring

Answer 2

Here is a post that allows both negative/positive power calculations.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/23003962/3538289

Function to handle +/- exponents with O(log(n)) complexity.

double power(double x, int n){
 if(n==0)
  return 1;

  if(n<0){
      x = 1.0/x;
      n = -n;
  }
 double ret = power(x,n/2);
 ret = ret * ret;
 if(n%2!=0)
   ret = ret * x;
 return ret;
}