Raising a decimal to a power of decimal?

Question

The .net framework provides in the Math class a method for powering double. But by precision requirement I need to raise a decimal to a decimal power [ Pow(decimal a, decimal b) ]. Does the framework have such a function? Does anyone know of a library with this kind of function?

Answer 1

To solve my problem I found some expansion series, and them I had them implemented to solve the equation X^n = e^(n * ln x).

// Adjust this to modify the precision
public const int ITERATIONS = 27;

// power series
public static decimal DecimalExp(decimal power)
{
    int iteration = ITERATIONS;
    decimal result = 1; 
    while (iteration > 0)
    {
        fatorial = Factorial(iteration);
        result += Pow(power, iteration) / fatorial;
        iteration--;
    }
    return result;
}

// natural logarithm series
public static decimal LogN(decimal number)
{
    decimal aux = (number - 1);
    decimal result = 0;
    int iteration = ITERATIONS;
    while (iteration > 0)
    {
        result += Pow(aux, iteration) / iteration;
        iteration--;
    }
    return result;
}

// example
void main(string[] args)
{
    decimal baseValue = 1.75M;
    decimal expValue = 1/252M;
    decimal result = DecimalExp(expValue * LogN(baseValue));
}

The Pow() and Factorial() functions are simple because the power is always an int (inside de power series).