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I am looking for something like nextpow2 in MATLAB like this:

P = nextpow2(A) returns the exponents for the smallest powers of two that satisfy $2^P\geq\left|A\right|$.

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    $\begingroup$ Ceiling[Log[2, #]] & $\endgroup$
    – acl
    Jul 28, 2014 at 14:14
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    $\begingroup$ For integers there is IntegerLength[A, 2]. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Lichtblau
    Jul 28, 2014 at 20:12

3 Answers 3

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How about this?

nextpow2[a_] := Ceiling @ Log[2, Abs @ a];

or

nextpow2[a_] := Ceiling[RealExponent[a, 2]]

The same thing in a different style:

f1 = Ceiling @* Log2 @* Abs;  (* v10 syntax *)

Or:

f2 = ⌈Log2 @ Abs @ #⌉ &;

A plot:

Plot[f2[x], {x, -10, 10}, Filling -> 0]

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ @Mr.Wizard, Thank you! I learned something from you. $\endgroup$
    – Tetsuo Ichii
    Jul 28, 2014 at 14:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Mr.Wizard Do you know if the v10 syntax is documented anywhere? Searching for @* in the documentation turns up nothing. $\endgroup$
    – user484
    Jul 28, 2014 at 18:00
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    $\begingroup$ @Rahul Yes, it is: Composition. See also RightComposition. (I suppose the search failed because both @ and * are simple wildcards.) $\endgroup$
    – Mr.Wizard
    Jul 28, 2014 at 18:03
  • $\begingroup$ Re "v10 syntax": is it just the shortcut notation @* that was added in Mathematica 10*? Note that Composition dates to version 2.0. $\endgroup$
    – murray
    Jul 28, 2014 at 18:43
  • $\begingroup$ @murray. Yes, it's just the infix notation that was added in V10 $\endgroup$
    – RunnyKine
    Jul 28, 2014 at 19:51
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You have a good answer already, but I'll mention the following since it may be useful in the future.

Many built-in functions are written in MATLAB and can be viewed, in this case edit nextpow2.m brings up the source for this function, which can be used as a starting point to implement in Mathematica.

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Not exactly the same, but very closely related is BitLength.

BitLength[n] gives the number of binary bits necessary to represent the integer n.

For positive n, BitLength[n] is effectively an efficient version of Floor[Log[2,n]]+1.

For negative n, it is equivalent to BitLength[BitNot[n]]

When is it not equivalent to nextpow2?

  • It works for integers only.

  • When the argument is positive and an integer power of 2, the result of BitLength will be one greater than that of nextpow2.

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