Hey folks! This is my first post here on dev.to, and I’m excited to share some insights on Bit Manipulation Techniques. I hope you find this discussion useful and informative.

Here is the List of Bit Manipulation techniques

1. Bitwise OR(|) for Combining Bits:
Bits from multiple sources are combined using the bitwise OR operator (|).

example:

00001100 (12 in binary)
OR
00000111 (7 in binary)
————————————
00001111 (15 in binary)

2. Bitwise AND (&) for Masking and Extracting:
Bitwise AND is used to isolate specific bits from a combined value or check if certain bits are set. This technique can also be used to mask out unwanted bits.
example:

10101111 [175 (0xAF)]
AND
00111100 [60 (0x3C)]
——————————————
00101100 [44 (0x2C)]

3. Bitwise NOT (~)
The Bitwise NOT operation is a unary operation that inverts all bits of its operand. This means that each bit of the number is flipped: 1s become 0s, and 0s become 1s.
example:

00001100 (12 in binary)
~ (Bitwise NOT)
—————————————-
11110011 (-13 as Result in Binary)

3. Bitwise Shift (<<, >>) for Positioning:
Bitwise shift operations are used to move bits to specific positions within a value before combining or extracting them. This is useful for packing multiple values into a single variable.
example:

Operation: 12 << 2

00001100 (12 in binary)
Shift left by 2 positions
———————————————-
00110000 (48 in binary)

Operation: 12 >> 2
00001100 (12 in binary)
Shift right by 2 positions:
———————————————-
00000011 (3 in binary)

4. Bitwise XOR (^):
For each bit position, the XOR operation sets the result bit to 1 if exactly one of the corresponding bits in the operands is 1, but not both.
Example:

00001100 (12 in Binary)
XOR
00000111 (7 in Binary)
—————————————————
00001011 (11 as Result in binary)

5. Bit Masks for Flags:
Bit masks are used to set, clear, or toggle specific bits within a variable. Each bit in the mask represents a different flag or status bit.
example:

Operation: Bitwise OR to set FLAG_A

Initial State: 00001000 (8 in binary)
OR
FLAG_A: 00000001 (1 in binary)
—————————————————-
Result: 00001001 (9 in binary)

Operation: Bitwise AND with NOT of FLAG_B to clear FLAG_B

Initial State: 00001111
AND NOT FLAG_B: 11111101
—————————————————-
Result: 00001101 (13 in binary)

Bitwise XOR to toggle FLAG_C
Initial State: 00001101 (13 in binary)
XOR
FLAG_C 00000100 (4 in binary)
——————————————————-
Result: 00001001 (9 in binary)

6. Packing Bitfields:
Bitfields gives the utility to the User to pack multiple smaller integer values into a single variable. Bitfields are typically used within structs.
example:

Example for Packing Bitfields
Field1: 1010 (4 bits)
Field2: 0101 (4 bits)

Packed Value: 10100101 (165 in decimal)