Flag Word - Changing Bits in Flag Words

Changing Bits in Flag Words

Writing, reading or toggling bits in flags can be done only using the OR, AND and NOT operations - operations which can be performed quickly in the processor.

To set a bit, OR the status byte with a mask byte. Any bits set in the mask byte or the status byte will be set in the result.

int setBit(int val, int bit_position) { return val | (1 << bit_position); }

To clear a bit, perform a NOT operation on the mask byte, then AND it with the status byte. The result will have the appropriate flag cleared (set to 0).

int clearBit(int val, int bit_position) { return val & ~(1 << bit_position); }

To toggle a bit, XOR the status byte and the mask byte. This will set a bit if it is cleared or clear a bit if it is set.

int toggleBit(int val, int bit_position) { return val ^ (1 << bit_position); }

Read more about this topic:  Flag Word

Famous quotes containing the words changing, bits, flag and/or words:

    The queers of the sixties, like those since, have connived with their repression under a veneer of respectability. Good mannered city queens in suits and pinstripes, so busy establishing themselves, were useless at changing anything.
    Derek Jarman (b. 1942)

    What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won’t tolerate anything else, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society’s tools, neither more nor less.
    Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)

    My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them—isn’t this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual?
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)