id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc	os	architecture	failure	difficulty	testcase	blockedby	blocking	related
2306	The (^) operator sometimes uses one (*) more than needed.	guest	igloo	"The implementation of integer exponentiation is suboptimal.
By inserting a trace in (*) you can easily observe that, e.g., exponent 4 uses 3 multiplications instead of 2.

Here's a different version:
{{{
(^)		:: (Num a, Integral b) => a -> b -> a
_ ^ 0		=  1
x ^ n | n > 0	=  g x n
		   where g b i | even i  = g (b*b) (i `quot` 2)
			       | otherwise = f b (i-1) b
                         f _ 0 y = y
		         f a d y | even d = f (a*a) (d `quot` 2) y
                                 | otherwise = f a (d-1) (a * y)
_ ^ _		= error ""Prelude.^: negative exponent""
}}}
 "	bug	closed	normal	6.8.3	Prelude	6.8.2	fixed		lennart.augustsson@…	Unknown/Multiple	Unknown/Multiple		Unknown