Power Function Implementation | Dataford Interview Questions

Hulu playback services may need to compute scaling factors such as a^b efficiently. Implement power(a, b) without using Python's built-in exponentiation functions, such as pow() or **.

Use binary exponentiation to reduce the number of multiplications. The exponent may be positive, zero, or negative.

Formal Specification

Input: a, a nonzero integer or floating-point base, and b, an integer exponent.
Output: The numeric value of a^b. Return 1 when b is 0. For a negative exponent, return the reciprocal of the corresponding positive power.
The result may be an integer or floating-point value depending on the inputs.

Constraints

a is a nonzero integer or floating-point number
-10^9 <= b <= 10^9
Do not use pow(), **, or another library power function
The exponent is an integer

Function Signature

def power(a, b):

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