Definition: bitwise

Dealing with bits rather than larger structures such as a byte. For example, each of the eight bits in a byte can be used as an individual flag to signal yes/no, on/off (1 or 0) about some condition. The Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT also deal with individual bits rather than bytes.

Bitwise operators are programming commands that work with individual bits. The primary ones are:

  Symbol   Function

    <<     Shift left 4 bits
    >>     Shift right 4 bits
    &      AND
    |      OR
    ^      XOR (Exclusive OR)
    ~      NOT (0 to 1; 1 to 0)