Why is code not working as expected?

Question

When I use the following code, I can't seem to ^2 the output of my function. instead its either adding 2 and subtracting 2. Shouldn't print(oper(a, b)^2) give me an output of 324?

def multiply(x, y):
return x * y
a = 9
b = 2

oper = multiply
print(oper(a, b)^2)
print((multiply(b,a))^2)

print((oper(b,a))-2)
print((oper(b,a))+2)

Answer 1

In python ^ is logical XOR operator.

And ** is the algebraic exponent operator or commonly said as "to the power".

By the way you can also use math.pow(oper(a, b), 2); just include math in the beginning to use the math library.

Answer 2

Replace ^ with **
For exponents in Python there's no ^ symbol instead we use **

Answer 3

Many thanks!