Bitwise Operations

Bitwise operations are used to perform an action on the bits (the 1's and 0's) of a number. Understanding what bitwise operators do requires you to understand how to convert from decimal to binary and from binary to decimal.

In this article a "binary" formatted number (which represents the "bits" of a number) will be written with a ²...

Converting from decimal to binary and from binary to decimal

If you use a bitwise operator, there will be an action performed for each bit in the binary form of the integer. For example 11010011² is 21110. And 14310 is 10001111^2.

From decimal to binary

If we have a decimal number, 783 for example, you can convert it to a decimal number using this way:

Division:	783 / 2	391 / 2	195 / 2	97 / 2	48 / 2	24 / 2	12 / 2	6 / 2	3 / 2	1 / 2
Quotient:	391	195	97	48	24	12	6	3	1	0
Remainder:	1 1	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	1

You have to stop dividing if the quotient is 0.

Now, read the sequence of remainders from right to left, then you get the binary number 1100001111.