Bitwise Operators in C

Bitwise Operators in C — a practical guide to C bitwise operators with clear examples you can reuse in real projects.

C Programming Tutorial Series (24/102). Prefer one article? Read the complete C programming tutorial.

Short description

Common in flags, protocols, and low-level code.

Bitwise

unsigned flags = 0;
flags |= 1u << 3;  /* set bit 3 */
flags &= ~(1u << 3); /* clear bit 3 */