Last Minute C Programming Bitwise Operators Tutorial

C programming language provides various operators like Arithmetic, Logical, Conditional and Bitwise operators. Bitwise operators deal with Bits of data instead of Bytes of data.

Bitwise Operators in C

There are six Bitwise Operators in C.

1. ~ TILDE
2. << Left Shift
3. >> Right Shift
4. & Bitwise AND
5. | Bitwise OR
6. ^ Bitwise XOR ( Exclusive OR)

1. TILDE ~ Operator

TILDE ~ Operator is also called Bitwise One's Complement Operator. 1's complement operator simply replaces 1s with 0s and 0s with 1s.

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  int a= 6;
  printf("%d %d", a, ~a);
  //0110 -> 1001
  //OUTPUT: 6 9

2. << Left Shift Operator

Left Shift operator shifts bits of a number from Right to Left. Gaps created on the Right side are filled with Zeroes. Bits on the left side are removed. So, <<N removes N bits on the left side.

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  int a = 6;
  printf("%d %d", a, a<<2);
  //Two Zeroes are filled right side.
  // 0110 -> 1000
  //OUTPUT: 6 8

3. >> Right Shift Operator

Right Shift operator shifts bits of a number from Left to Right. Gaps created on the Left side are filled with Zeroes. Bits on the Right side are removed. So, >>N removes N bits on the Right side. 

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  int a = 6;
  printf("%d %d", a, a>>2);
  //Two Zeroes are filled left side.
  // 0110 -> 0001
  //OUTPUT: 6 1

4. & Bitwise AND Operator

Bitwise AND Operator & multiplies bit by bit. So 1 multiplied by 1 gives 0. Anything Multiplied by 0 gives 0.

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  //Binary of number 3 = 0011
  int a = 6, b=3;
  printf("%d", a & b);
  //0010
  //OUTPUT: 2

5. | Bitwise OR Operator

Bitwise OR Operator | gives a result of 1 if at least one input or operand is 1.

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  //Binary of number 3 = 0011
  int a = 6, b=3;
  printf("%d", a | b);
  //0111
  //OUTPUT: 7

6. ^ Bitwise Exclusive OR

Bitwise XOR Operator or Exclusive OR operator gives an output of 1 if two operands are different. That means, only 0 and 1 combination gives output as ONE.

  //Binary of number 6 = 0110
  //Binary of number 3 = 0011
  int a = 6, b=3;
  printf("%d", a | b);
  //0101
  //OUTPUT: 5

C Bitwise Operators Examples Table

C Online Test on Bitwise Operators