Example of Bitwise Operators in C
The following program uses bitwise operators to perform bit operations in C.
// C Program to demonstrate use of bitwise operators
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
// a = 5(00000101), b = 9(00001001)
unsigned int a = 5, b = 9;
// The result is 00000001
printf("a = %u, b = %u\n", a, b);
printf("a&b = %u\n", a & b);
// The result is 00001101
printf("a|b = %u\n", a | b);
// The result is 00001100
printf("a^b = %u\n", a ^ b);
// The result is 11111010
printf("~a = %u\n", a = ~a);
// The result is 00010010
printf("b<<1 = %u\n", b << 1);
// The result is 00000100
printf("b>>1 = %u\n", b >> 1);
return 0;
}
Output
a = 5, b = 9 a&b = 1 a|b = 13 a^b = 12 ~a = 250 b<<1 = 18 b>>1 = 4
Time Complexity: O(1)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)
Bitwise Operators in C
In C, the following 6 operators are bitwise operators (also known as bit operators as they work at the bit-level). They are used to perform bitwise operations in C.
- The & (bitwise AND) in C takes two numbers as operands and does AND on every bit of two numbers. The result of AND is 1 only if both bits are 1.
- The | (bitwise OR) in C takes two numbers as operands and does OR on every bit of two numbers. The result of OR is 1 if any of the two bits is 1.
- The ^ (bitwise XOR) in C takes two numbers as operands and does XOR on every bit of two numbers. The result of XOR is 1 if the two bits are different.
- The << (left shift) in C takes two numbers, the left shifts the bits of the first operand, and the second operand decides the number of places to shift.
- The >> (right shift) in C takes two numbers, right shifts the bits of the first operand, and the second operand decides the number of places to shift.
- The ~ (bitwise NOT) in C takes one number and inverts all bits of it.
Let’s look at the truth table of the bitwise operators.
X | Y | X & Y | X | Y | X ^ Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |