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Comment by lnyan | Hacker News Reader

I feel the same way. Last week, I was surprised that `pow` in Python is actually a modpow: `pow(base, exp[, mod])`.

Also check https://pymotw.com/3/. It's a great tour of the Python standard library

And since 3.8 the exponent can be negative, which lets you compute modular inverses without having to reimplement the extended Euclidean algorithm.

    >>> pow(5, -1, 13)
    8
    >>> 5 * 8 % 13
    1

Huh, it's the little things that are the neatest surpises. Having to write the EEA multiple times during my crypto class to do the homework was a real pain in the ass.

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