Efficient Algorithm for Bit Reversal (from MSB->LSB to LSB->MSB) in C

Question

What is the most efficient algorithm to achieve the following:

0010 0000 => 0000 0100

The conversion is from MSB->LSB to LSB->MSB. All bits

Answer 1

It seems that many other posts are concerned about speed (i.e best = fastest). What about simplicity? Consider:

char ReverseBits(char character) {
    char reversed_character = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
        char ith_bit = (c >> i) & 1;
        reversed_character |= (ith_bit << (sizeof(char) - 1 - i));
    }
    return reversed_character;
}

and hope that clever compiler will optimise for you.

If you want to reverse a longer list of bits (containing sizeof(char) * n bits), you can use this function to get:

void ReverseNumber(char* number, int bit_count_in_number) {
    int bytes_occupied = bit_count_in_number / sizeof(char);      

    // first reverse bytes
    for (int i = 0; i <= (bytes_occupied / 2); i++) {
        swap(long_number[i], long_number[n - i]);
    }

    // then reverse bits of each individual byte
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes_occupied; i++) {
         long_number[i] = ReverseBits(long_number[i]);
    }
}

This would reverse [10000000, 10101010] into [01010101, 00000001].