Resources to learn bitwise programming?

Question

I am a c++ programmer and occasionally I'll come across some code that is using bitwise operators to manipulate things at the bit level, but I have no real understanding of those concepts. So I would like a resource to help me learn it so well that it becomes second nature. Does anyone know of good resources for this? A google search did not provide me much useful information. Maybe I'm not sure what to look for. Thanks!

Answer 1

Here are a few:

• Dev Articles -> Bitwise Operators
• GameDev.net -> Bitwise Operators
• Wikipedia -> Bitwise Operation
• Code Project -> Bitwise Operations

Answer 2

I imagine there are other possibly better resources, but I remembered that there was an article on this I read a few years ago on GameDev.Net.

BitWise Operations in C

Answer 3

You'll have to know the background of the binary system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system has a great overview. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operation for bitwise operations.

Answer 4

I would suggest the following tutorials:

http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/bitwise_operators.html http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/bitbashing.aspx

They both have nice examples.

Answer 5

Well, I guess every c/c++ book explains bitwise operators. There are also a lot of tutorials online.If I were you, I would improve my google skills. Delicious also has a good search functionality. Here are some of the links I have found:

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1563.asp

http://www.vipan.com/htdocs/bitwisehelp.html

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operation

http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/jmpc/bitwise.html

http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/bitwise_operators.html

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/low-level-bit-hacks-you-absolutely-must-know/

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/bitbashing.aspx

http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cclass/int/sx4ab.html

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~vose/c-stuff/bithacks.html

http://www.somacon.com/p125.php

http://www.fredosaurus.com/notes-cpp/expressions/bitops.html

http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~stbird/Tutorials/BitwiseOps.html

http://www.custard.org/~andrew/programming/bitwise/

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/Bitwise_Operation.aspx

http://bits.stephan-brumme.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_manipulation

http://www.hackersdelight.org/HDcode.htm

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/BitMath

http://irc.essex.ac.uk/www.iota-six.co.uk/c/e4_bitwise_operators_and_or_xor.asp

Answer 6

I absolutely love Henry Warren's Hacker's Delight book. The website for it offers Chapter 2 ("Basics") as a free sample which, despite the name, offers some fairly sophisticated bit manipulation tricks. It might not be the best place to start, but it's fantastic once you start to get comfortable with bit arithmetic.

Answer 7

I agree with the responses above on that GameDev.net article. That was a good one for me in the past.

This article on Denormalization with Bitmasks (http://maggienelson.com/2009/02/denormalization-with-bitmasks/) was useful to me as well and includes database-specific examples, in case those are of use.