Patch for ** problem

Index: generic/tclExecute.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/tcl/tcl/generic/tclExecute.c,v
retrieving revision 1.333
diff -u -r1.333 tclExecute.c
--- generic/tclExecute.c        10 Sep 2007 21:47:21 -0000      1.333
+++ generic/tclExecute.c        11 Sep 2007 00:50:27 -0000
@@ -621,7 +621,8 @@
                                 * instruction tracing. */
 {
 #if (LONG_MAX > 0x7fffffff) || !defined(TCL_WIDE_INT_IS_LONG)
-    int i;
+    int i, j;
+    Tcl_WideInt w, x;
 #endif
 #ifdef TCL_COMPILE_DEBUG
     if (Tcl_LinkVar(interp, "tcl_traceExec", (char *) &tclTraceExec,
@@ -634,8 +635,29 @@
            (ClientData) NULL, (Tcl_CmdDeleteProc *) NULL);
 #endif /* TCL_COMPILE_STATS */
 #if (LONG_MAX > 0x7fffffff) || !defined(TCL_WIDE_INT_IS_LONG)
+
+    /*
+     * Fill in a table of what base can be raised to powers 2, 3, ... 16
+     * without overflowing a Tcl_WideInt
+     */
     for (i = 2; i <= 16; ++i) {
-       MaxBaseWide[i-2] = (Tcl_WideInt) pow((double) LLONG_MAX, 1.0 / i);
+
+       /* Compute an initial guess in floating point */
+
+       w = (Tcl_WideInt) pow((double) LLONG_MAX, 1.0 / i) + 1;
+
+       /* Correct the guess if it's too high */
+
+       for (;;) {
+           x = LLONG_MAX;
+           for (j = 0; j < i; ++j) {
+               x /= w;
+           }
+           if (x == 1) break;
+           --w;
+       }
+
+       MaxBaseWide[i-2] = w;
     }
 #endif
 }