<p>Many programming languages have built-in support for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operations" rel="nofollow noreferrer">bitwise operations</a>, often using C's syntax:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>~</code> = NOT</li>
<li><code>&amp;</code> = AND</li>
<li><code>|</code> = OR</li>
<li><code>^</code> = XOR</li>
<li><code>&lt;&lt;</code> = left shift (multiplication by power of 2)</li>
<li><code>&gt;&gt;</code> = right shift (division by power of 2)</li>
</ul>
<p>These have various practical uses, for example:</p>
<ul>
<li>Using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_field" rel="nofollow noreferrer">bit fields</a> to pack multiple Boolean flags into a byte</li>
<li>Cryptography (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_cipher" rel="nofollow noreferrer">XOR</a> is particularly convenient for this)</li>
<li>Compression algorithms</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-length_quantity" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Variable-length quantity</a> encoding (including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">UTF-8</a> character encoding)</li>
</ul>
<p>So, I would expect any general-purpose programming language to provide the standard bitwise <em>operations</em>.  My question is: What's the benefit of them having dedicated punctuation-based <em>syntax</em>, in a language that's not specifically focused on low-level manipulation of binary data?  Would there be a downside to relegating these operations to functions in the language's standard <em>library</em> (perhaps in a module named <code>bitops</code>)?  This would free up <code>~&amp;|^</code> for other uses, e.g.,:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>^</code> could be a BASIC-style exponentiation operator, or a Pascal-style pointer type sigil.</li>
<li><code>&amp;</code> could be a string/array concatenation operator, distinct from addition, so that you could have both <code>[1, 2] &amp; [3, 4] == [1, 2, 3, 4]</code> and <code>[1, 2] + [3, 4] == [4, 6]</code>.</li>
</ul>
<p>One argument for built-in bitwise operators is that they usually map directly to machine-language instructions, allowing efficient implementation.  This may matter for performance-critical code, but is less of a concern for interpreted “scripting” languages.</p>

<syntax><bitwise-operators>
Should bitwise operations have dedicated operators?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-06T19:52:45.363Z
I think the question should be split into to as the "and part is completely different"; If you do that, I could provide you with an answer and, if you care, an example.
feldentm
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-06T20:08:16.943Z
It looks to me like this would be a "lacks objective design criteria" question; is it possible to refine it into a clearly suitable form as described in the [help/on-topic]?
Michael Homer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-06T20:11:05.893Z
An overlapping but not identical question is [Is it necessary to differentiate between && and & when I support overloads](https://langdev.stackexchange.com/q/3077/133), and also [What evidence exists on using & and | as logical operators instead of && and ||?](https://langdev.stackexchange.com/q/3012/133).
Michael Homer
<p>Many modern languages support built-in operator overloading (e.g. Python and JavaScript use <code>+</code> for both numeric addition and string concatenation), and often user-defined operator overloading (e.g. C++ and Python). So using these operators for bitwise operations on integers does not preclude using them for other operations on other data types (C++ uses <code>&lt;&lt;</code> and <code>&gt;&gt;</code> as I/O operations when the left operand is a stream).</p>
<p>Furthermore, in code that does lots of bitwise operations, requiring use of function calls will result in extremely verbose code where it may be hard to see the patterns. For instance, consider this C code for setting or clearing bit <code>n</code> of a variable</p>
<pre><code>var1 |= 1 &lt;&lt; n;
var1 &amp;= !(1 &lt;&lt; n);
</code></pre>
<p>In functional format:</p>
<pre><code>var1 = bitops.or(var1, bitops.lshift(1, n));
var1 = bitops.and(bitopts.invert(bitops.lshift(1, n)));
</code></pre>
<p>Of course, you can hide this complexity in macros or higher-level functions.</p>
<p>The one case you mention is that we might like to use <code>^</code> for exponentiation, while XOR is probably the least used bitwise operation. However, some languages already use <code>**</code> for exponentiation -- bitwise won the battle for single-character operators.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-06T22:15:06.363Z
2023-12-06T22:15:06.363Z
Barmar
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-03T17:45:49.390Z
Worth noting that if you REALLY want `^` for exponentiation, you can use `~` for XOR (as is done in Lua).
CoffeeTableEspresso
# Should bitwise operations have dedicated operators?
Posted by: username_0 on 2023-12-06
Many programming languages have built-in support for [bitwise operations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operations), often using C's syntax:

* `~` = NOT
* `&` = AND
* `|` = OR
* `^` = XOR
* `<<` = left shift (multiplication by power of 2)
* `>>` = right shift (division by power of 2)

These have various practical uses, for example:

* Using [bit fields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_field) to pack multiple Boolean flags into a byte
* Cryptography ([XOR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_cipher) is particularly convenient for this)
* Compression algorithms
* [Variable-length quantity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-length_quantity) encoding (including [UTF-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8) character encoding)

So, I would expect any general-purpose programming language to provide the standard bitwise *operations*. My question is: What's the benefit of them having dedicated punctuation-based *syntax*, in a language that's not specifically focused on low-level manipulation of binary data? Would there be a downside to relegating these operations to functions in the language's standard *library* (perhaps in a module named `bitops`)? This would free up `~&|^` for other uses, e.g.,:

* `^` could be a BASIC-style exponentiation operator, or a Pascal-style pointer type sigil.
* `&` could be a string/array concatenation operator, distinct from addition, so that you could have both `[1, 2] & [3, 4] == [1, 2, 3, 4]` and `[1, 2] + [3, 4] == [4, 6]`.

One argument for built-in bitwise operators is that they usually map directly to machine-language instructions, allowing efficient implementation. This may matter for performance-critical code, but is less of a concern for interpreted “scripting” languages.
**Tags:** syntax bitwise-operators
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I think the question should be split into to as the "and part is completely different"; If you do that, I could provide you with an answer and, if you care, an example.  
> **username_2**: It looks to me like this would be a "lacks objective design criteria" question; is it possible to refine it into a clearly suitable form as described in the [help/on-topic]?  
> **username_2**: An overlapping but not identical question is [Is it necessary to differentiate between && and & when I support overloads](https://langdev.stackexchange.com/q/3077/133), and also [What evidence exists on using & and | as logical operators instead of && and ||?](https://langdev.stackexchange.com/q/3012/133).  
---
## 1 answers
### Answer by username_3 on 2023-12-06. Score: 3
Many modern languages support built-in operator overloading (e.g. Python and JavaScript use + for both numeric addition and string concatenation), and often user-defined operator overloading (e.g. C++ and Python). So using these operators for bitwise operations on integers does not preclude using them for other operations on other data types (C++ uses << and >> as I/O operations when the left operand is a stream).
Furthermore, in code that does lots of bitwise operations, requiring use of function calls will result in extremely verbose code where it may be hard to see the patterns. For instance, consider this C code for setting or clearing bit n of a variable
var1 |= 1 << n;
var1 &= !(1 << n);

In functional format:
var1 = bitops.or(var1, bitops.lshift(1, n));
var1 = bitops.and(bitopts.invert(bitops.lshift(1, n)));

Of course, you can hide this complexity in macros or higher-level functions.
The one case you mention is that we might like to use ^ for exponentiation, while XOR is probably the least used bitwise operation. However, some languages already use ** for exponentiation -- bitwise won the battle for single-character operators.
> **Comments:**
> **username_4** (2024-04-03): Worth noting that if you REALLY want `^` for exponentiation, you can use `~` for XOR (as is done in Lua).  
---
