Bitwise OR

  Bitwise OR works almost exactly the same way as bitwise AND. The only difference is that only one of the two bits needs to be a 1 for that position's bit in the result to be 1. (If both bits are a 1, the result will also have a 1 in that position.) The sybmol is a pipe: |. Again, this is similar to Boolean logical operator, which is ||. 

For example, 0x56 | 0x32 is 0x76, because: 

The ^ (caret) operator performs a bitwise exclusive-OR on two integers. Each bit in the result is 1 if one, but not both, of the corresponding bits in the two input operands is 1. For example, 0x56 ^ 0x32 is 0x64: 

The ~ (tilde) operator performs a bitwise complement on its single integer operand. (The ~ operator is therefore a unary operator, like ! and the unary -, &, and * operators.) Complementing a number means to change all the 0 bits to 1 and all the 1s to 0s. For example, assuming 16-bit integers, ~0x56 is 0xffa9: 

The << operator shifts its first operand left by a number of bits given by its second operand, filling in new 0 bits at the right. Similarly, the >> operator shifts its first operand right. If the first operand is unsigned, >> fills in 0 bits from the left, but if the first operand is signed, >> might fill in 1 bits if the high-order bit was already 1. (Uncertainty like this is one reason why it's usually a good idea to use all unsigned operands when working with the bitwise operators.) For example, 0x56 << 2 is 0x158

For example, 0x56 << 2 is 0x158:

  And 0x56 >> 1 is 0x2b: 
 

For both of the shift operators, bits that scroll ``off the end'' are discarded; they don't wrap around. (Therefore, 0x56 >> 3 is 0x0a.) 

The bitwise operators will make more sense if we take a look at some of the ways they're typically used. We can use & to test if a certain bit is 1 or not. For example, 0x56 & 0x40 is 0x40, but 0x32 & 0x40 is 0x00: 

 Since any nonzero result is considered ``true'' in C, we can use an expression involving & directly to  test some condition, for example: