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

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 18 Feb, 2021

Left Shift :

Denoted as : <<

Eg: N<<i (N: first operand, i: second operand)

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” denoted as ‘(x<<y)’ is equivalent to multiplying x with 2^y (2 raised to power y).

eg: lets take N=22; which is 00010110 in Binary Form.

Now, if “N is left-shifted by 2” i.e N=N<<2 then N will become N=N*(2^2). Thus, N=22*(2^2)=88 which can be wriiten as 01011000.

CPP

/* C++ Program to demonstrate use of left shift
   operator */
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
    // a = 5(00000101), b = 9(00001001)
    unsigned char a = 5, b = 9;
 
    // The result is 00001010
    printf("a<<1 = %d\n", a<<1);
   
    // The result is 00010010
    printf("b<<1 = %d\n", b<<1); 
    return 0;
}

Output

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

Right Shift :

Denoted as : >>

Eg: N>>i (N: first operand, i: second operand)

Takes two numbers, right shifts the bits of the first operand, the second operand decides the number of places to shift. In other words right shifting an integer “x” with an integer “y” denoted as ‘(x>>y)‘ is equivalent to dividing x with 2^y.

eg: lets take N=32; which is 100000 in Binary Form.

Now, if “N is right-shifted by 2” i.e N=N>>2 then N will become N=N/(2^2). Thus, N=32/(2^2)=8 which can be wriiten as 1000.

CPP

/* C++ Program to demonstrate use of right
   shift operator */
#include <stdio.h>
 
using namespace std;
int main()
{
    // a = 5(00000101), b = 9(00001001)
    unsigned char a = 5, b = 9;
 
    // The result is 00000010
 
    printf("a>>1 = %d\n", a >> 1);
 
    // The result is 00000100
    printf("b>>1 = %d\n", b >> 1);
    return 0;
}

Output

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. For bit shift of larger values 1ULL<<62 ULL is used for Unsigned Long Long which is defined using 64 bits which can store large values.
The left-shift by 1 and right-shift by 1 are equivalent to the product of first term and 2 to the power given element(1<<3 = 1*pow(2,3)) and division of first term and second term raised to power 2 (1>>3 = 1/pow(2,3)) respectively.
As mentioned in point 1, it works only if numbers are positive.

C

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int x = 19;
    unsigned long long y = 19;
    printf("x << 1 = %d\n", x << 1);
    printf("x >> 1 = %d\n", x >> 1);
    // shift y by 61 bits left
    printf("y << 61 = %lld\n", y << 61);
    return 0;
}

Output

x << 1 = 38
x >> 1 = 9
y << 61 = 6917529027641081856

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.

C

#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;
}

Output

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

Interesting Facts about Bitwise Operators in C

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