Bitwise Operator

A bitwise operator is an operator that manipulates individual bits. The operators that most people are familiar with, such as the addition operator (+), work with bytes or groups of bytes. Occasionally, however, programmers need to manipulate the bits within a byte. The C programming language supports the following bitwise operators:

1. >>Shifts bits right
2. Shifts bits left
3. &Does an AND compare on two groups of bits
4. |Does an OR compare on two groups of bits
5. ^Does an XOR compare on two groups of bits
6. ~ Complements a group of bits

Not all programming languages support bitwise operators.