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• Would you like to work on a fix?

How are you using Babel?

@babel/cli

Input code

console.log(42n ** 3n);

Output:

74088n

Configuration file name

babel.config.json

Configuration

{
  "presets": ["@babel/preset-env"]
}

Current and expected behavior

Generated Code:

"use strict";

console.log(Math.pow(42n, 3n));

Babel incorrectly transforms the BigInt exponentiation operator (**) into Math.pow(), which does not support BigInt.

Output:

> babel_project@1.0.0 start
> node dist/app.js

babel_/babel_project/dist/app.js:3
console.log(Math.pow(42n, 3n));
                 ^

TypeError: Cannot convert a BigInt value to a number

Expected Behavior:

Babel should preserve BigInt exponentiation (**) without replacing it with Math.pow().

Environment

System:
  OS: Linux 6.8 Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
Binaries:
  Node: 20.18.1 - /usr/bin/node
  npm: 10.8.2 - /usr/bin/npm
npmPackages:
  @babel/cli: ^7.26.4 => 7.26.4 
  @babel/core: ^7.26.10 => 7.26.10 
  @babel/preset-env: ^7.26.9 => 7.26.9 

Possible solution

Preserve BigInt exponentiation (**) in the transpilation instead of converting it to Math.pow()

Additional context

No response