pow

Use the pow function in APL to raise a base value to a given exponent: base^exponent. The function accepts any real base and exponent.

pow is useful whenever you need to apply a power function to a metric, such as squaring deviations for variance calculations, computing exponential growth factors, scaling values by a fractional power, or inverting a power transformation. It's more flexible than exp, exp2, or exp10 because you can specify any base.

Usage

Syntax

pow(base, exponent)

Parameters

Returns

base raised to the power exponent: base^exponent.

Example

Use pow to square the deviation of each request's duration from a 200 ms baseline.

Query

['sample-http-logs']
| extend deviation = req_duration_ms - 200.0
| extend squared_deviation = pow(deviation, 2)
| project _time, id, req_duration_ms, squared_deviation
| order by squared_deviation desc

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Output

List of related functions

• sqrt: Returns the square root of a value. This is equivalent to pow(x, 0.5) and is more readable for the square-root case.
• exp: Returns e^x. Use it when the base is e rather than an arbitrary number.
• exp2: Returns 2^x. Use it when the base is always 2.
• exp10: Returns 10^x. Use it when the base is always 10.
• log: Returns the natural logarithm. Use it to undo a pow transformation in log space.

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