C Shift Operators

Shift Operators:

• The bitwise shift operators move the bit values in the memory location.
• The left operand specifies the value to be shifted.
• The right operand specifies the number of positions that the bits in the value are to be shifted.
• The bit shift operators take two arguments, and looks like:
  • x << n
  • x >> n

Where x can be any kind of int variable or char variable and n can be any kind of int variable.

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
short int a=8,b,c;
b = a << 2 ;
c = a >> 2 ;
printf("[%d][%d]",b,c);
}

Shift operators have higher priority than relational operators.

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
int a=2,b=8,c,d;
c = a << 2 == 8 ;
d = b >> 2 == 2 ;
printf("%d\n%d\n",c,d);
}

Theoretical formulas to shift data bits :

1. >>  –>  n/2^s (n divided by 2 power s)  
2. <<  –>  n*2^s (n multiplied by 2 power s)

Where:

• “n” represents data
• “s” represents bits to be shifted