Is there any advantage to using pow(x,2) instead of x*x, with x double?

Question

is there any advantage to using this code

double x;
double square = pow(x,2);

instead of this?

double x;
double square = x*         


        

Answer 1

IMHO:

• Code readability
• Code robustness - will be easier to change to pow(x, 6), maybe some floating point mechanism for a specific processor is implemented, etc.
• Performance - if there is a smarter and faster way to calculate this (using assembler or some kind of special trick), pow will do it. you won't.. :)

Cheers