Best practices for circular shift (rotate) operations in C++

Question

Left and right shift operators (<< and >>) are already available in C++. However, I couldn\'t find out how I could perform circular shift or rotate operations.

Answer 1

How abt something like this, using the standard bitset ...

#include <bitset> 
#include <iostream> 

template <std::size_t N> 
inline void 
rotate(std::bitset<N>& b, unsigned m) 
{ 
   b = b << m | b >> (N-m); 
} 

int main() 
{ 
   std::bitset<8> b(15); 
   std::cout << b << '\n'; 
   rotate(b, 2); 
   std::cout << b << '\n'; 

   return 0;
}

HTH,

Answer 2

another suggestion

template<class T>
inline T rotl(T x, unsigned char moves){
    unsigned char temp;
    __asm{
        mov temp, CL
        mov CL, moves
        rol x, CL
        mov CL, temp
    };
    return x;
}

Answer 3

Below is a slightly improved version of Dídac Pérez's answer, with both directions implemented, along with a demo of these functions' usages using unsigned char and unsigned long long values. Several notes:

1. The functions are inlined for compiler optimizations
2. I used a cout << +value trick for tersely outputting an unsigned char numerically that I found here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28414758/1599699
3. I recommend using the explicit <put the type here> syntax for clarity and safety.
4. I used unsigned char for the shiftNum parameter because of what I found in the Additional Details section here:

The result of a shift operation is undefined if additive-expression is negative or if additive-expression is greater than or equal to the number of bits in the (promoted) shift-expression.

Here's the code I'm using:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

template <typename T>
inline T rotateAndCarryLeft(T rotateMe, unsigned char shiftNum)
{
    static const unsigned char TBitCount = sizeof(T) * 8U;

    return (rotateMe << shiftNum) | (rotateMe >> (TBitCount - shiftNum));
}

template <typename T>
inline T rotateAndCarryRight(T rotateMe, unsigned char shiftNum)
{
    static const unsigned char TBitCount = sizeof(T) * 8U;

    return (rotateMe >> shiftNum) | (rotateMe << (TBitCount - shiftNum));
}

void main()
{
    //00010100 == (unsigned char)20U
    //00000101 == (unsigned char)5U == rotateAndCarryLeft(20U, 6U)
    //01010000 == (unsigned char)80U == rotateAndCarryRight(20U, 6U)

    cout << "unsigned char " << 20U << " rotated left by 6 bits == " << +rotateAndCarryLeft<unsigned char>(20U, 6U) << "\n";
    cout << "unsigned char " << 20U << " rotated right by 6 bits == " << +rotateAndCarryRight<unsigned char>(20U, 6U) << "\n";

    cout << "\n";


    for (unsigned char shiftNum = 0U; shiftNum <= sizeof(unsigned char) * 8U; ++shiftNum)
    {
        cout << "unsigned char " << 21U << " rotated left by " << +shiftNum << " bit(s) == " << +rotateAndCarryLeft<unsigned char>(21U, shiftNum) << "\n";
    }

    cout << "\n";

    for (unsigned char shiftNum = 0U; shiftNum <= sizeof(unsigned char) * 8U; ++shiftNum)
    {
        cout << "unsigned char " << 21U << " rotated right by " << +shiftNum << " bit(s) == " << +rotateAndCarryRight<unsigned char>(21U, shiftNum) << "\n";
    }


    cout << "\n";

    for (unsigned char shiftNum = 0U; shiftNum <= sizeof(unsigned long long) * 8U; ++shiftNum)
    {
        cout << "unsigned long long " << 3457347ULL << " rotated left by " << +shiftNum << " bit(s) == " << rotateAndCarryLeft<unsigned long long>(3457347ULL, shiftNum) << "\n";
    }

    cout << "\n";

    for (unsigned char shiftNum = 0U; shiftNum <= sizeof(unsigned long long) * 8U; ++shiftNum)
    {
        cout << "unsigned long long " << 3457347ULL << " rotated right by " << +shiftNum << " bit(s) == " << rotateAndCarryRight<unsigned long long>(3457347ULL, shiftNum) << "\n";
    }

    cout << "\n\n";
    system("pause");
}

Answer 4

#define ROTATE_RIGHT(x) ( (x>>1) | (x&1?0x8000:0) )

Answer 5

Assuming you want to shift right by L bits, and the input x is a number with N bits:

unsigned ror(unsigned x, int L, int N) 
{
    unsigned lsbs = x & ((1 << L) - 1);
    return (x >> L) | (lsbs << (N-L));
}

Answer 6

Since it's C++, use an inline function:

template <typename INT> 
INT rol(INT val) {
    return (val << 1) | (val >> (sizeof(INT)*CHAR_BIT-1));
}

C++11 variant:

template <typename INT> 
constexpr INT rol(INT val) {
    static_assert(std::is_unsigned<INT>::value,
                  "Rotate Left only makes sense for unsigned types");
    return (val << 1) | (val >> (sizeof(INT)*CHAR_BIT-1));
}