A bit field is a common idiom used in computer programming to store multiple, logical, neighboring bits, where each of the sets of bits, and single bits can be addressed. A bit field is most commonly used to represent integral types of known, fixed bit-width. A well-known usage of bit-fields is to represent a set of bits, and/or series of bits, known as flags. For example, the first bit in a bit field can be used to determine the state of a particular attribute associated with the bit field.
A bit field is distinguished from a bit array in that the latter is used to store a large set of bits indexed by integers and is often wider than any integral type supported by the language. Bit fields, on the other hand, typically fit within a machine word, and the denotation of bits is independent of their numerical index.
Read more about Bit Field: Implementation, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words bit and/or field:
“We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“In the quilts I had found good objects—hospitable, warm, with soft edges yet resistant, with boundaries yet suggesting a continuous safe expanse, a field that could be bundled, a bundle that could be unfurled, portable equipment, light, washable, long-lasting, colorful, versatile, functional and ornamental, private and universal, mine and thine.”
—Radka Donnell-Vogt, U.S. quiltmaker. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981)