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

Here is a fast solution for C that works in GCC and Clang; ready to be copied and pasted.

#include 

unsigned int fls(const unsigned int value)
{
    return (unsigned int)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned int) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clz(value) - 1);
}

unsigned long flsl(const unsigned long value)
{
    return (unsigned long)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned long) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clzl(value) - 1);
}

unsigned long long flsll(const unsigned long long value)
{
    return (unsigned long long)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned long long) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clzll(value) - 1);
}

And a little improved version for C++.

#include 

constexpr unsigned int fls(const unsigned int value)
{
    return (unsigned int)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned int) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clz(value) - 1);
}

constexpr unsigned long fls(const unsigned long value)
{
    return (unsigned long)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned long) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clzl(value) - 1);
}

constexpr unsigned long long fls(const unsigned long long value)
{
    return (unsigned long long)1 << ((sizeof(unsigned long long) * CHAR_BIT) - __builtin_clzll(value) - 1);
}

The code assumes that value won't be 0. If you want to allow 0, you need to modify it.