C Exercises: Calculate the power of any number

Last update on August 07 2025 12:50:57 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

17. Power Calculation Recursion Variants

Write a program in C to calculate the power of any number using recursion.

Pictorial Presentation:

C Exercises: Calculate the power of any number

Sample Solution:

C Code:

#include <stdio.h>
 
long int CalcuOfPower(int x,int y)
{
    long int result=1;
    if(y == 0) return result;
    result=x*(CalcuOfPower(x,y-1));  //calling the  function CalcuOfPower itself recursively
}
int main()
{
    int bNum,pwr;
    long int result;
    printf("\n\n Recursion : Calculate the power of any number :\n");
	printf("----------------------------------------------------\n");	
     
    printf(" Input the base  value : ");
    scanf("%d",&bNum);
     
    printf(" Input the value of power : ");
    scanf("%d",&pwr);
     
    result=CalcuOfPower(bNum,pwr);//called the function CalcuOfPower
     
    printf(" The value of %d to the power of %d is : %ld\n\n",bNum,pwr,result);
     
    return 0;
}

Sample Output:

 Recursion : Calculate the power of any number :                                                              
----------------------------------------------------                                                          
 Input the base  value : 2                                                                                    
 Input the value of power : 6                                                                                 
 The value of 2 to the power of 6 is : 64

Explanation:

long int CalcuOfPower(int x,int y)
{
    long int result=1;
    if(y == 0) return result;
    result=x*(CalcuOfPower(x,y-1));  //calling the  function CalcuOfPower itself recursively
}

The function ‘CalcuOfPower()’ takes two integer parameters ‘x’ and ‘y’ and returns a long int result.

A variable result is initialized to 1.
The base case is checked where if y is 0, then the function returns result which is 1.
If y is not 0, then the function recursively calls itself with y-1 until y becomes 0.
In each recursive call, result is multiplied with x and assigned back to result.
Finally, the function returns the result which is the power of x raised to y.

Time complexity and space complexity:

The time complexity of the function is O(n) - where n is the value of y, since the function is called recursively y times.

The space complexity of the function is O(n) - where n is the value of y, since n stack frames are used for the recursive function calls.

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a C program to compute x^n using recursion with exponentiation by squaring.
Write a C program to calculate x^n recursively, handling negative exponents properly.
Write a C program to compute x^n and count the number of multiplications performed using recursion.
Write a C program to calculate x^n modulo a given number recursively.

Go to:

PREV : Palindrome String Recursion Variants.
NEXT : Hailstone Sequence Recursion Variants.

C Programming Code Editor:

Have another way to solve this solution? Contribute your code (and comments) through Disqus.