feat: add math/base/special/powf

[Neerajpathak07]

Progresses #649.

Description

What is the purpose of this pull request?

This pull request:

• adds math/base/special/powf which is the single-precision version of pow

Related Issues

Does this pull request have any related issues?

This pull request:

• progresses [RFC]: Add C implementations to base special math functions (tracking issue) #649

Questions

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No.

Other

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No.

Checklist

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• Read, understood, and followed the contributing guidelines

---

@stdlib-js/reviewers

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[Neerajpathak07]

@kgryte @gunjjoshi what do you guys think of the JS implementation so far!!

[Neerajpathak07]

Updates so far cc: @kgryte @gunjjoshi

• Went through the binary format for float32 as discussed in the meet and referred documentation for to-uint32, from-binary-string & to-binary-string also studied the documentation for constants/float32 packages.
• Changed var names across logx logax and pow2 with accurate hexadecimal values based on upstream implementation with corresponding logical var names.
• Based all the JS implementation wrt to powf
• used JS var like towordf and forWordf to resonate with GET_FLOAT_WORD & SET_FLOAT_WORD.
• reduced the LOG_WORKSPACE from an array of high and low bits to a singular var to compensate 32-bit int!!
• wrapped the implementation in float64ToFloat32
• reduced CI errors now most of them require C implementation of powf
• updated reference link in JS licenses to the msun file for powf
• removed the logic for high and low words space and added logic for single variable workspace in main.js

Upcoming updates

• adding test fixtures.
• Working on test cases.
• adding C implementations once the JS one is approved.
• Fixing bugs and typo errors.

[Neerajpathak07]

Had to rebase a branch as an unwanted change was added Ik it's unethical to do this but it was messing the purpose of this big-PR everything is running clean now working on more features.

[gunjjoshi]

@Neerajpathak07 Let's follow https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/release/12.2.0/lib/msun/src/e_powf.c?revision=367086&view=markup here. The current implementation in main.js looks a bit off from this reference. You might want to restructure it, so that it matches with the reference.

[anandkaranubc]

/stdlib merge

[stdlib-bot]

Coverage Report

Package	Statements	Branches	Functions	Lines
math/base/special/powf	$\color{red}1219/1253$ $\color{green}+97.29\%$	$\color{red}100/103$ $\color{green}+97.09\%$	$\color{red}8/10$ $\color{green}+80.00\%$	$\color{red}1219/1253$ $\color{green}+97.29\%$

The above coverage report was generated for the changes in this PR.

[anandkaranubc]

Thanks @Neerajpathak07 for your contribution! This will indeed be a great addition! 🚀

[Neerajpathak07]

@anandkaranubc Thanks for your continuous efforts to get this one over the finish line.

[Planeshifter]

LGTM! Thank you @Neerajpathak07 and @anandkaranubc!

There are various discrepancies between the function parameter names in the implementation and public-facing docs, but I do no think we need to address these. They are also present in pow.