Print an exponential - c

Question

I'm creating a program that compares numbers with their respective exponents, and indicates which of the three is the smallest. The problem is that I wouldn't want it to perform the operation, for example:
Let's say the smallest number was $4^{8}$, so it would calculate that value, but I want it to just print "4^8" on the screen, or related things, but without doing that operation (in this case, it prints 65536).
int main()
{
int a, b, c, smaller, x, y, z, for_a, for_b, for_c;
printf("first value: ");
scanf("%d", &a);
printf("Second value: ");
scanf("%d", &b);
printf("Third value: ");
scanf("%d", &c);
printf("Value of x: ");
scanf("%d", &x);
printf("Value of y: ");
scanf("%d", &y);
printf("Value of z: ");
scanf("%d", &z);
for_a= pow(a, x);
for_b= pow(b, y);
for_c= pow(c, z);
if (for_a< for_b && for_a < for_c){
smaller= for_a;
}
else if (for_b < for_c){
smaller = for_b;
}
else {
smaller = for_c;
}
printf("Smaller= %d\n", smaller);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

You need to identify the set of data that corresponds to your result. Storing the result only is not enough.
You could do this as follows:
#include <stdio.h>
#typedef struct values_s{
int base;
int exponent;
int result;
} values_t;
#define NUMBER_OF_VALUES 3
int main(void)
{
values_t values[NUMBER_OF_VALUES];
for (int i = 0; i < NUMBER_OF_VALUES; i++)
{
printf("Base value #%d: ", i+1);
fflush(stdout);
int result = scanf("%d", &values[i].base);
// TODO: Error handling in case result != 1
}
for (int i = 0; i < NUMBER_OF_VALUES; i++)
{
printf("Exponent #%d: ", i+1);
fflush(stdout);
int result = scanf("%d", &values[i].exponent);
// TODO: Error handling in case result != 1
}
for (int i = 0; i < NUMBER_OF_VALUES; i++)
{
values[i].result = pow(values[i].base, values[i].exponent);
}
int smallest = 0;
for (int i = 1; i < NUMBER_OF_VALUES; i++)
{
if (values[i].result < values[smallest].result)
{
smallest = i;
}
}
printf("Smallest: %d^%d = %d\n", values[smallest].base, values[smallest].exponent, values[smallest].result);
return 0;
}
This is based on the assumptions that your variables of type int are large enough to hold the values you are dealing with. Otherwise you need to adjust accordingly.