What is the fastest/most efficient way to find the highest set bit (msb) in an integer in C?

Question

If I have some integer n, and I want to know the position of the most significant bit (that is, if the least significant bit is on the right, I want to know the position of

Answer 1

Note that what you are trying to do is calculate the integer log2 of an integer,

#include 
#include 

unsigned int
Log2(unsigned long x)
{
    unsigned long n = x;
    int bits = sizeof(x)*8;
    int step = 1; int k=0;
    for( step = 1; step < bits; ) {
        n |= (n >> step);
        step *= 2; ++k;
    }
    //printf("%ld %ld\n",x, (x - (n >> 1)) );
    return(x - (n >> 1));
}

Observe that you can attempt to search more than 1 bit at a time.

unsigned int
Log2_a(unsigned long x)
{
    unsigned long n = x;
    int bits = sizeof(x)*8;
    int step = 1;
    int step2 = 0;
    //observe that you can move 8 bits at a time, and there is a pattern...
    //if( x>1<1<1<1L<1L<<(step+step2); ) {
        step+=1;
        //printf("step %d\n",step+step2);
    }
    printf("log2(%ld) %d\n",x,step+step2);
    return(step+step2);
}

This approach uses a binary search

unsigned int
Log2_b(unsigned long x)
{
    unsigned long n = x;
    unsigned int bits = sizeof(x)*8;
    unsigned int hbit = bits-1;
    unsigned int lbit = 0;
    unsigned long guess = bits/2;
    int found = 0;

    while ( hbit-lbit>1 ) {
        //printf("log2(%ld) %d<%d<%d\n",x,lbit,guess,hbit);
        //when value between guess..lbit
        if( (x<=(1L<(1L< 1<<%d %ld\n",x,guess,1L<(1L<

Another binary search method, perhaps more readable,

unsigned int
Log2_c(unsigned long x)
{
    unsigned long v = x;
    unsigned int bits = sizeof(x)*8;
    unsigned int step = bits;
    unsigned int res = 0;
    for( step = bits/2; step>0; )
    {
        //printf("log2(%ld) v %d >> step %d = %ld\n",x,v,step,v>>step);
        while ( v>>step ) {
            v>>=step;
            res+=step;
            //printf("log2(%ld) step %d res %d v>>step %ld\n",x,step,res,v);
        }
        step /= 2;
    }
    if( (x>(1L<

And because you will want to test these,

int main()
{
    unsigned long int x = 3;
    for( x=2; x<1000000000; x*=2 ) {
        //printf("x %ld, x+1 %ld, log2(x+1) %d\n",x,x+1,Log2(x+1));
        printf("x %ld, x+1 %ld, log2_a(x+1) %d\n",x,x+1,Log2_a(x+1));
        printf("x %ld, x+1 %ld, log2_b(x+1) %d\n",x,x+1,Log2_b(x+1));
        printf("x %ld, x+1 %ld, log2_c(x+1) %d\n",x,x+1,Log2_c(x+1));
    }
    return(0);
}