Understanding Swift - Bitwise Operators

Introduction

Bitwise operators in Swift are used to perform operations at the bit level. These operators are commonly used in low-level programming, bitwise calculations, and communication networks to manipulate binary data efficiently. Bitwise operations do not cause overflow, as the results always stay within the range of the given numeric type.

Swift supports the following bitwise operators:

  • Bitwise NOT (~)
  • Bitwise AND (&)
  • Bitwise OR (|)
  • Bitwise XOR (^)
  • Bitwise Left Shift (<<)
  • Bitwise Right Shift (>>)

Bitwise NOT Operator (~)

The bitwise NOT operator (~) inverts all bits of the operand, changing 0s to 1s and 1s to 0s. This is also known as the one's complement of a number.

Syntax

~variableName

Example

import Foundation

var num: UInt8 = 0b00011111
var result = ~num

print("Original bits:", String(num, radix: 2))
print("One's complement:", String(result, radix: 2))

Output

Original bits: 11111
One's complement: 11100000

Bitwise AND Operator (&)

The bitwise AND operator (&) performs a bitwise AND operation between two operands. It returns 1 if both corresponding bits are 1; otherwise, it returns 0.

operand1 & operand2

Example

import Foundation

var num1: UInt8 = 0b1000101
var num2: UInt8 = 0b1100011
var result = num1 & num2

print("Result:", String(result, radix: 2))

Output

Result: 1000001

Bitwise OR Operator (|)

The bitwise OR operator (|) compares each bit of two numbers and returns 1 if at least one of the corresponding bits is 1.

Syntax

operand1 | operand2

Example

import Foundation

var num1: UInt8 = 0b1010001
var num2: UInt8 = 0b1100011
var result = num1 | num2

print("Result:", String(result, radix: 2))

Output

Result: 1110011

Bitwise XOR Operator (^)

The bitwise XOR operator (^) returns 1 if one of the corresponding bits is 1 and the other is 0, otherwise returns 0.

Syntax

operand1 ^ operand2

Example

import Foundation

var num1: UInt8 = 0b1011001
var num2: UInt8 = 0b1100011
var result = num1 ^ num2

print("Result:", String(result, radix: 2))

Output

Result: 111010

Bitwise Right Shift Operator (>>)

The bitwise right shift operator (>>) moves the bits of a number to the right by a specified number of positions. The vacated positions are filled with zeros for unsigned integers.

Syntax

operand1 >> operand2

Examples

import Foundation

let number: UInt8 = 32
let shiftedNum = number >> 2

print("Original Number:", number)
print("Shifted Number:", shiftedNum)

Output

Original Number: 32
Shifted Number: 8