Determining the largest value before hitting infinity - c++

Question

I have this very simple function that checks the value of (N^N-1)^(N-2):
int main() {
// Declare Variables
double n;
double answer;
// Function
cout << "Please enter a double number >= 3: ";
cin >> n;
answer = pow(n,(n-1)*(n-2));
cout << "n to the n-1) to the n-2 for doubles is " << answer << endl;
}
Based on this formula, it is evident it will reach to infinity, but I am curious until what number/value of n would it hit infinity? Using a loop seems extremely inefficient, but that's all I can think of. Basically, creating a loop that says let n be a number between 1 - 100, iterate until n == inf
Is there a more efficient approach to this problem?

Answer 1

I think you are approaching this the wrong way.
Let : F(N) be the function (N^(N-1))(N-2)
Now you actually know whats the largest number that could be stored in a double type variable
is 0x 7ff0 0000 0000 0000 Double Precision
So now you have F(N) = max_double
just solve for X now.
Does this answer your question?

Answer 2

Two things: the first is that (N^(N-1))^(N-2)) can be written as N^((N-1)*(N-2)). So this would remove one pow call making your code faster.
pow(n, (n-1)*(n-2));
The second is that to know what practical limits you hit, testing all N will literally take a fraction of a second, so there really is no reason to find another practical way.
You could compute it by hand knowing variable size limits and all, but testing it is definitely faster. An example for code (C++11, since I use std::isinf):
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <iomanip>
int main() {
double N = 1.0, diff = 10.0;
const unsigned digits = 10;
unsigned counter = digits;
while ( true ) {
double X = std::pow( N, (N-1.0) * (N-2.0) );
if ( std::isinf(X) ) {
--counter;
if ( !counter ) {
std::cout << std::setprecision(digits) << N << "\n";
break;
}
N -= diff;
diff /= 10;
}
N += diff;
}
return 0;
}
This example takes less than a millisecond on my computer, and prints 17.28894235