What is the purpose of the ** operator in JavaScript, and how is it different from the ^ operator?

In JavaScript, the `**` operator is the exponentiation operator, used to raise the left operand to the power of the right operand. It was introduced in ECMAScript 2016 (ES7) to provide a more concise and readable way to perform exponentiation compared to the traditional `Math.pow()` method or the `^` (bitwise XOR) operator.

Here's an example of using the `**` operator:

let result = 2 ** 3;  // 2 raised to the power of 3

console.log(result);  // Output: 8

In this example, `2 ** 3` calculates 2 to the power of 3, resulting in `8`.

On the other hand, the `^` operator in JavaScript is the bitwise XOR (exclusive OR) operator. It performs a bitwise XOR operation on the individual bits of the operands. It is not used for exponentiation.

Here's an example of using the `^` operator:

let result = 5 ^ 3;  // Bitwise XOR of 5 and 3

console.log(result);  // Output: 6

In this example, `5 ^ 3` performs a bitwise XOR operation on the binary representations of 5 and 3, resulting in `6`.

To summarize:

- `**` operator: Exponentiation operator, used for raising a number to a power.

- `^` operator: Bitwise XOR operator, used for bitwise XOR operations on integer values.

It's important not to confuse these two operators, as they serve different purposes. If you want to perform exponentiation, use `**`, and if you want to perform bitwise XOR, use `^`.