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Planar functions are mappings from a finite field F q to itself with an extremal differential property. Such functions give rise to finite projective planes and other combinatorial objects. There is a subtle difference between the definitions of these functions depending on the parity of q and we consider the case that q is even. We classify polynomials of degree at most q 1 / 4 that induce planar functions on F q , by showing that such polynomials are precisely those in which the degree of every monomial is a power of two. As a corollary we obtain a complete classification of exceptional planar polynomials, namely polynomials over F q that induce planar functions on infinitely many extensions of F q. The proof strategy is to study the number of F q -rational points of an algebraic curve attached to a putative planar function. Our methods also give a simple proof of a new partial result for the classification of almost perfect nonlinear functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]