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~

[Bitwise Operators]

Description

The bitwise NOT operator in C++ is the tilde character ~. Unlike & and |, the bitwise NOT operator is applied to a single operand to its right. Bitwise NOT changes each bit to its opposite: 0 becomes 1, and 1 becomes 0. For example:

0    1      operand1
———-
1    0      ~ operand1

Example Code

int a = 103;    // binary:  00000000000000000000000001100111
int b = ~a;     // binary:  11111111111111111111111110011000 = -104

Tips

You might be surprised to see a negative number like -104 as the result of this operation. This is because the highest bit in an int variable is the so-called sign bit. If the highest bit is 1, the number is interpreted as negative. This encoding of positive and negative numbers is referred to as two’s complement. For more information, see the Wikipedia article on two’s complement.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that for any integer x, ~x is the same as -x-1.

At times, the sign bit in a signed integer expression can cause some unwanted surprises.

See also

  • [Example] BitMath Tutorial

Language Reference Home

The text of the 86Duino reference is a modification of the Arduino reference and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Code samples in the reference are released into the public domain.

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