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Bitwise exclusive-or used like exponentiation GO-S1012

Security
Major

In some languages, the caret symbol (^) is used to represent exponentiation. However, in Go, as in many C-like languages, it represents the bitwise exclusive-or (XOR) operation. It is recommended to carefully vet if the caret is used for XOR or exponentiation.

The expression 2^32 in Go thus evaluates the number 34, not math.Pow(2, 32) (or 1 << 32), and such patterns are likely erroneous. It is recommended to use 1 << EXP (for 2^EXP) where EXP is the exponent and the base is 2 or for any base, math.Pow from the standard library is recommended.

Bad practice

func main() {
    // Prints 34, should be 1 << 32 instead. But make sure what's required:
    // exponentiation or XOR'ing.
    // NOTE: As programmers make a common mistake, we provide a lint for this but
    // it should be audited before making any change.
    fmt.Println(2 ^ 32)
}

Recommended

func main() {
    fmt.Println(1 << 32)
}

References