The operator ^ is undefined for arguments

Question

(((difference - previousStep)/1000)^2)
//difference and previousStep are both doubles

Why can't I use the ^ operator with doubles? I just want to know why. Luckily for me I can just multiple difference - previousStep by itself because i'm just squaring it, but if i need to bring it to the Nth power, then this would be a problem. So why can't you ^ doubles and is there a way around this?

Answer 1

The ^ operator isn't the exponentiation operator in Java; it's the bitwise XOR operator, which doesn't make much sense with double arguments.

You can either multiply the value by itself or you can call Math.pow(yourValue, 2) for exponentiation.