Left Shift and Right Shift Operators in C/C++

<< (left shift) Takes two numbers, left shifts the bits of the first operand, the second operand decides the number of places to shift. Or in other words left shifting an integer “x” with an integer “y” (x<<y) is equivalent to multiplying x with 2^y (2 raise to power y).

a<<1 = 10
b<<1 = 18

>> (right shift) Takes two numbers, right shifts the bits of the first operand, the second operand decides the number of places to shift.Similarly right shifting (x>>y) is equivalent to dividing x with 2^y.

a>>1 = 2
b>>1 = 4

Important Points :

• The left shift and right shift operators should not be used for negative numbers. The result of is undefined behaviour if any of the operands is a negative number. For example results of both -1 << 1 and 1 << -1 is undefined.
• If the number is shifted more than the size of integer, the behaviour is undefined. For example, 1 << 33 is undefined if integers are stored using 32 bits. See this for more details.
• The left-shift by 1 and right-shift by 1 are equivalent to multiplication and division by 2 respectively.
  As mentioned in point 1, it works only if numbers are positive.
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  #include<stdio.h> int main() {    int x = 19;    printf ("x << 1 = %d\n", x << 1);    printf ("x >> 1 = %d\n", x >> 1);    return 0; }

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  Output:

  x << 1 = 38
  x >> 1 = 9
  

• The left-shift of 1 by i is equivalent to 2 raised to power i.
  As mentioned in point 1, it works only if numbers are positive.
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  #include<stdio.h> int main() {     int i = 3;      printf("pow(2, %d) = %d\n", i, 1 << i);    i = 4;      printf("pow(2, %d) = %d\n", i, 1 << i);    return 0; }

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  Output:

  pow(2, 3) = 8
  pow(2, 4) = 16
  

Interesting Facts about Bitwise Operators in C

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