Question

I was playing with an implementation of a power function:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int pow(int b, int e)
{
  int result;

  if (e == -1 && b != 0)
  {
    cout << "b = " << 1/b << endl;
    return 1/b;
  }

  else if (b != 0 && e != 0)
  {
    //int e_int(int (e));
    bool e_bool(e < 0);
    e = (e_bool*-e + !e_bool*e);
    result = b = pow(b, -e_bool)*(b*!e_bool + +e_bool);
    cout << endl << "\"result\" = " << result << " " << e << endl;

    for(int i = 1; i < e; i += 1)
    {
      result *= b;
    }
    return result;
  }

  else if (e != 0 && b == 0)
  {
    return 0;
  }

  else if (e == 0 && b != 0)
  {
    return 1;
  }

  else if (b == 1)
  {
    return 1;
  }

  else if (e == 1)
  {
    return b;
  }

  else
  {
    cout << endl << "Error";
    return -1;
  }
}

int main ()
{
  cout << endl << pow(-2, -1);

  return 0;
}

The output is:

b = 0

0

Why does b get set to 0?

Answer 1

Integer division can only produce integer results. Your program causes this line:

cout << "b = " << 1/b << endl;

To run, and if b is any integer larger than 1, the result will be 0.