Bitwise Operators

Syntax

AND-expression & equality-expression

exclusive-OR-expression ^ AND-expression

inclusive-OR-expression exclusive-OR-expression

~ cast-expression

shift-expression << additive-expression

shift-expression >> additive-expression

Remarks

Use the bitwise operators to modify the individual bits rather than the number.

Operator	What it does
&	bitwise AND; compares two bits and generates the result `1` if both bits are `1`, otherwise it returns `0`.
\|	bitwise inclusive OR; compares two bits and generates the result `1` if either or both bits are `1`, otherwise it returns `0`.
^	bitwise exclusive OR; compares two bits and generates the result `1` if the bits are complementary, otherwise it returns `0`.
~	bitwise complement; inverts each bit. ~ is used to create destructors.
>>	bitwise shift right; moves the bits to the right, discards the far right bit and if unsigned assigns `0` to the left most bit, otherwise sign extends.
<<	bitwise shift left; moves the bits to the left, it discards the far left bit and assigns `0` to the right most bit.

Both operands in a bitwise expression must be of an integral type.

A

B

A & B

A ^ B

A | B

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

Note: &, >>, << are context sensitive. & can also be the pointer reference operator.

Note: >> is often overloaded to be the input operator in I/O expressions. << is often overloaded to be the output operator in I/O expressions.

See Also