Bitwise Operators in C Programming

In a C programming language Bitwise operator works on bits and perform bit-by-bit operation. There are following bitwise operators in C:-

Operator Description Example
& Binary AND Operator   a & b
| Binary OR Operator a| b
^ Binary XOR Operator  a^b
~ Binary One’s Complement Operator is unary ~a
<<  Binary Left Shift Operator a<<b
>>  Binary Right Shift Operator a>>b

The truth tables for &, |, and ^ is as follows –

a b a & b a | b a ^ b
0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 1
1 1 1 1 0
1 0 0 1 1

Assume A = 60 and B = 13 in binary format, they will be as follows −

               A in binary     = 0011 1100         (60)                     

              B in binary     = 0000 1101          (13)

Bitwise AND (&)

                      A      = 0011 1100         (60)                

          &         B      = 0000 1101          (13)

———————————————————

                                0000 1100           (12)

Bitwise OR (|)

                      A      = 0011 1100         (60)                

          |          B      = 0000 1101          (13)

———————————————————

                                0011 1101           (61)

Bitwise XOR (|)

                      A      = 0011 1100         (60)                

          ^         B      = 0000 1101          (13)

———————————————————

                                0011 0001           (49)

Binary Left Shift Operator

Left shift operator shift all the bits in a left direction to specified number of times.

i=16 //0001 0000

i = i <<2;          // 0100 0000  (shift left 2 bits, front 2 bits will be lost and appended 2 zero

Example: 

#include
int main() {
 int i = 16;		// 0001 0000
i = i>>2;  		// 0000 0100  (shift right 2 bits, last 2 bits will be lost, and 2 zero add in front) 
printf("i = %d", i);


  return 0;
}

i=64

Binary Right Shift Operator

Left shift operator shift all the bits in a left direction to specified number of times.

int i = 16;                    // 0001 0000

i = i>>2;                      // 0000 0100  (shift right 2 bits, last 2 bits will be lost, and 2 zero add in front)

Example

#include
int main() {
 int i = 16;		// 0001 0000
i = i>>2;  		// 0000 0100  (shift right 2 bits, last 2 bits will be lost, and 2 zero add in front) 
printf("i = %d", i);


  return 0;
}

Output

i=4

Exapmle:  Write a program to demonstrate Bitwise operator.

#include  
int main() {
  int a = 60;
  int b = 13;
  int c, d, e, f, g, h;
  c = ~a; //c = -61		
  d = a | b; //d= 61		
  e = a & b; // e= 12
  f = a ^ b; //f=  49
  printf("\n value of c = %d", c);
  printf("\n value of d = %d", d);
  printf("\n value of e = %d", e);
  printf("\n value of f = %d", f);
  g = h = 16;
  g = g << 2; //g= 64
  h = h >> 2; // h=4;
  printf("\n value of g = %d", g);
  printf("\n value of h = %d", h);
}

OUTPUT

 value of c = -61
 value of d = 61
 value of e = 12
 value of f = 49
 value of g = 64
 value of h = 4