Using bitwise operators

Question

I\'ve been studying C# and ran accross some familiar ground from my old work in C++. I never understood the reason for bitwise operators in a real application. I\'ve never u

Answer 1

There is a reason that, depending on the kind of person, can be important: cool-iness! ;)

Take this, an algorithm to calculate the absolute value of a number, without using any conditional branch instruction:

int abs(const int input) {
   int temp = A >> 31;
   return ( input ^ A ) - A;
}

A reason to avoid conditional branching is that it could stop your processor pre-fetching, waiting for the condition to be verified to know to which value the program counter should be set.

So, a part from the joke, there are very good technical reasons to do it.