Is better POW() or POWER()?

Question

I must make an exponentiation of a number and I don't know which function to use between POW() and POWER(). Which of the two functions is better?

Looking at the MySQL documentation I saw that they are synonymous, but I wanted to understand if there was a reason for two functions that do the same thing.

Answer 1

POWER is the synonym of POW. So nothing is better, it is the same:

POWER(X,Y)
This is a synonym for POW().

Using two different names for the same function gives you the possibility to port an SQL query from one dialect to an other dialect without (big) changes.

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An example:

You want to use the following TSQL query on MySQL too:

SELECT POWER(2,2) -- 4

Now you can write these query specific for the dialects:

SELECT POWER(2,2) -- 4 - TSQL (POW is not available on TSQL)
SELECT POW(2,2)   -- 4 - MySQL

But you can also use the POWER function on MySQL since this is a synonym for POW:

SELECT POWER(2,2) -- 4 - TSQL and MySQL

Answer 2

pow and power are synonyms in MySQL.

I'd use power since it's part of the ANSI SQL standard and using it would make your code easier to port if you ever decide to use a different database.