bitwiseoperation

Bitwise operation refers to operations that directly manipulate individual bits, the most basic units of data in computing. They operate on binary representations of integers and are fundamental in low-level programming, hardware interfacing, and performance-critical software. The common bitwise operators are AND, OR, XOR, and NOT, usually written as symbols such as &, |, ^, and ~. The AND operator yields a 1 in each bit position only if both operands have a 1 in that position. OR yields a 1 if either operand has a 1 in that position. XOR yields a 1 only if exactly one of the operands has a 1 in that position. NOT inverts all bits in the operand. Shifts move bits to another position: left shift (<<) fills vacated least-significant bits with zeros; right shift (>>) typically fills vacated most-significant bits with the sign bit for arithmetic shifts, though some languages provide an unsigned right shift (>>>).

Bitwise operations are commonly used for masking, where an AND with a mask clears bits or an OR with a mask sets bits; XOR is often used to toggle bits; and NOT is used to invert bit patterns. Shifts enable rapid multiplication or division by powers of two and are used in bit-packing, bitfields, and efficient indexing. The exact behavior depends on the language and the integer width (such as 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits); in languages with fixed width, left shifts beyond the width are typically undefined or wrap, while in languages with arbitrary-precision integers, bits extend as needed.

Understanding bitwise operations requires awareness of two's complement representation for signed integers and the specific language specification for shift behavior and overflow. They remain a fundamental tool for systems programming, graphics, cryptography, and performance-tuned algorithms.