Science & Data

Bitwise operations

Bitwise operators work on integer values regardless of whether the value is written in decimal, binary, octal, or hex.

Operators

  • NOT — ~0b011010
  • AND — 123123 & 0b100101
  • OR — 0b1011010 | 0x123abe23
  • XOR — 0o1024123 xor 0b0101101001
  • Right shift — 12342 >> 5
  • Left shift — 72318379 << 3
~0b011010
123123 & 0b100101
0b1011010 | 0x123abe23
0o1024123 xor 0b0101101001
12342 >> 5
72318379 << 3

Examples

0xff & 0x0f
0x1234 xor 0xff
1 << 8

Output formatting usually inherits the left operand's base. Append a base conversion when you want another format.

0xff & 0x0f to decimal

Common mistakes

  • Use & and | for bitwise AND and OR — the words and and or are not the operators.
  • 5 ^ 3 is exponentiation, not XOR. Use 5 xor 3.
  • ~ is the only prefix bitwise operator; the rest are infix.
5 xor 3