This is a follow-up to my question yesterday:
CMS kindly provided this example of using bitwise operators to add two numbers in C:
#include<stdio.h>
int add(int x, int y) {
int a, b;
do {
a = x & y;
b = x ^ y;
x = a << 1;
y = b;
} while (a);
return b;
}
int main( void ){
printf( "6 + 3 = %d", add(6,3));
printf( "6 - 3 = %d", add(6,-3));
return 0;
}
It works great and I then ported it to Python as follows:
def add(x, y):
while True:
a = x & y
b = x ^ y
x = a << 1
y = b
if a == 0:
break
return b
print "6 + 3 = %d" % add(6,3)
print "6 - 3 = %d" % add(6,-3)
They both work for addition and the C program works for subtraction as well. However, the Python program enters an infinite loop for subtraction. I am trying to get to the bottom of this and have posted the program here for further experimentation: http://codepad.org/pb8IuLnY
Can anyone advise why there would be a difference between the way C handles this and the way CPython handles this?