What does the ** maths operator do in Python?

Question

What does this mean in Python:

sock.recvfrom(2**16) 

I know what sock is, and I get the gist of the recvfrom function, but what the heck is 2**16? Specifically, the two asterisk/double asterisk operator?

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(english keywords, because it's hard to search for this: times-times star-star asterisk-asterisk double-times double-star double-asterisk operator)

Answer 1

It is the power operator.

From the Python 3 docs:

The power operator has the same semantics as the built-in pow() function, when called with two arguments: it yields its left argument raised to the power of its right argument. The numeric arguments are first converted to a common type, and the result is of that type.

It is equivalent to 2¹⁶ = 65536, or pow(2, 16)