What are Bitwise Operators?

Bitwise operators treat their operands as bits: zeroes and ones. There are three bitwise operators that you need to know about:

• Bitwise AND: &
• Bitwise OR: |
• Bitwise NOT: ~

Each of them used for different purposes.

The Bitwise AND operator returns 1 in each bit position for which the corresponding bits of both operands are 1. For example:

0 & 0 // returns 0
0 & 1 // returns 0
1 & 0 // returns 0
1 & 1 // returns 1

Unlike the AND operator, the bitwise OR operator returns 1 in each bit position for which the corresponding bits of either one of the operands are 1. For example:

0 | 0 // returns 0
0 | 1 // returns 1
1 | 0 // returns 1
1 | 1 // returns 1 

The bitwise NOT operator is used to invert the bits of its operand. For example:

~0  // returns -1
~-1 // returns 0
~1  // returns -2
~-2 // returns 1

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Resources:

• Bitwise AND
• Bitwise OR
• Bitwise NOT