Why use the Bitwise-Shift operator for values in a C enum definition?

Question

Apple sometimes uses the Bitwise-Shift operator in their enum definitions. For example, in the CGDirectDisplay.h file which is part of Core

Answer 1

This way you can add multiple flags together to create a "set" of flags and can then use & to find out whether any given flag is in such a set.

You couldn't do that if it simply used incrementing numbers.

Example:

int flags = kCGDisplayMovedFlag | kCGDisplaySetMainFlag; // 6
if(flags & kCGDisplayMovedFlag) {} // true
if(flags & kCGDisplaySetModeFlag) {} // not true

Answer 2

.. because 1<<7 looks more concise and easier to read than 01000000. Doesn't it?

Answer 3

Maybe writing the values in hexadecimal (or binary) helps :-)

enum {
  kCGDisplayBeginConfigurationFlag  = (1 << 0), /* 0b0000000000000001 */
  kCGDisplayMovedFlag               = (1 << 1), /* 0b0000000000000010 */
  kCGDisplaySetMainFlag             = (1 << 2), /* 0b0000000000000100 */
  kCGDisplaySetModeFlag             = (1 << 3), /* 0b0000000000001000 */
  kCGDisplayAddFlag                 = (1 << 4), /* 0b0000000000010000 */
  kCGDisplayRemoveFlag              = (1 << 5), /* 0b0000000000100000 */
  kCGDisplayEnabledFlag             = (1 << 8), /* 0b0000000100000000 */
  kCGDisplayDisabledFlag            = (1 << 9), /* 0b0000001000000000 */
  kCGDisplayMirrorFlag              = (1 << 10),/* 0b0000010000000000 */
  kCGDisplayUnMirrorFlag            = (1 << 11),/* 0b0000100000000000 */
  kCGDisplayDesktopShapeChangedFlag = (1 << 12) /* 0b0001000000000000 */
};

Now you can add them (or "or" them) and get different values

kCGDisplayAddFlag | kCGDisplayDisabledFlag /* 0b0000001000010000 */

Answer 4

If you have FlagA=1, FlagB=2 and FlagC=3, FlagA or FlagB would give the same value as FlagC. The shift operator is used to ensure that every combination of flags is unique.

Answer 5

This will allow for a variable to easily combine multiple flags:

unit32_t multFlag = kCGDisplayRemoveFlag | kCGDisplayMirrorFlag | kCGDisplaySetMainFlag'

Answer 6

Let's me give you a more practice example. In c++ when you want to open a file (Open for output, and in binary mode opposed to text mode), you can do it by:

const char *filename = "/home/xy/test.bin";
fstream output(filename, ios::out | ios::binary);

You can see, ios::out | ios::binary can set two mode(Open for output, and in binary mode).

How does this work ? It's by enum(bitwise-shift values):

enum _Ios_Openmode 
{ 
  _S_app        = 1L << 0,
  _S_ate        = 1L << 1,
  _S_bin        = 1L << 2,  /* 0b0000000000000100 */
  _S_in         = 1L << 3,
  _S_out        = 1L << 4,  /* 0b0000000000010000 */
  _S_trunc      = 1L << 5
  //.....
};

/// Perform input and output in binary mode (as opposed to text mode).
static const openmode binary =  _S_bin;

/// Open for input.  Default for @c ifstream and fstream.
static const openmode in =      _S_in;

/// Open for output.  Default for @c ofstream and fstream.
static const openmode out =     _S_out;

If you use value increment by 1 in enum _Ios_Openmode, you have to set(ios::out) and set(ios::binary) do two times. It may not so convenient to check and set value by one time.