How to use bitmask?

Question

How do i use it in C++ ? when is it useful to use ?
Please give me an example of a problem where bitmask is used , how it actually works . Thanks!

Answer 1

Bit masking is "useful" to use when you want to store (and subsequently extract) different data within a single data value.

An example application I've used before is imagine you were storing colour RGB values in a 16 bit value. So something that looks like this:

RRRR RGGG GGGB BBBB

You could then use bit masking to retrieve the colour components as follows:

  const unsigned short redMask   = 0xF800;
  const unsigned short greenMask = 0x07E0;
  const unsigned short blueMask  = 0x001F;

  unsigned short lightGray = 0x7BEF;

  unsigned short redComponent   = (lightGray & redMask) >> 11;
  unsigned short greenComponent = (lightGray & greenMask) >> 5;
  unsigned short blueComponent =  (lightGray & blueMask);

Answer 2

Briefly bitmask helps to manipulate position of multiple values. There is a good example here ;

Bitflags are a method of storing multiple values, which are not mutually exclusive, in one variable. You've probably seen them before. Each flag is a bit position which can be set on or off. You then have a bunch of bitmasks #defined for each bit position so you can easily manipulate it:

    #define LOG_ERRORS            1  // 2^0, bit 0
    #define LOG_WARNINGS          2  // 2^1, bit 1
    #define LOG_NOTICES           4  // 2^2, bit 2
    #define LOG_INCOMING          8  // 2^3, bit 3
    #define LOG_OUTGOING         16  // 2^4, bit 4
    #define LOG_LOOPBACK         32  // and so on...

// Only 6 flags/bits used, so a char is fine
unsigned char flags;

// initialising the flags
// note that assigning a value will clobber any other flags, so you
// should generally only use the = operator when initialising vars.
flags = LOG_ERRORS;
// sets to 1 i.e. bit 0

//initialising to multiple values with OR (|)
flags = LOG_ERRORS | LOG_WARNINGS | LOG_INCOMING;
// sets to 1 + 2 + 8 i.e. bits 0, 1 and 3

// setting one flag on, leaving the rest untouched
// OR bitmask with the current value
flags |= LOG_INCOMING;

// testing for a flag
// AND with the bitmask before testing with ==
if ((flags & LOG_WARNINGS) == LOG_WARNINGS)
   ...

// testing for multiple flags
// as above, OR the bitmasks
if ((flags & (LOG_INCOMING | LOG_OUTGOING))
         == (LOG_INCOMING | LOG_OUTGOING))
   ...

// removing a flag, leaving the rest untouched
// AND with the inverse (NOT) of the bitmask
flags &= ~LOG_OUTGOING;

// toggling a flag, leaving the rest untouched
flags ^= LOG_LOOPBACK;



**

WARNING: DO NOT use the equality operator (i.e. bitflags == bitmask) for testing if a flag is set - that expression will only be true if that flag is set and all others are unset. To test for a single flag you need to use & and == :

**

if (flags == LOG_WARNINGS) //DON'T DO THIS
   ...
if ((flags & LOG_WARNINGS) == LOG_WARNINGS) // The right way
   ...
if ((flags & (LOG_INCOMING | LOG_OUTGOING)) // Test for multiple flags set
         == (LOG_INCOMING | LOG_OUTGOING))
   ...

You can also search C++ Triks

Answer 3

Let's say I have 32-bit ARGB value with 8-bits per channel. I want to replace the alpha component with another alpha value, such as 0x45

unsigned long alpha = 0x45
unsigned long pixel = 0x12345678;
pixel = ((pixel & 0x00FFFFFF) | (alpha << 24));

The mask turns the top 8 bits to 0, where the old alpha value was. The alpha value is shifted up to the final bit positions it will take, then it is OR-ed into the masked pixel value. The final result is 0x45345678 which is stored into pixel.

Answer 4

Bitmasks are used when you want to encode multiple layers of information in a single number.

So (assuming unix file permissions) if you want to store 3 levels of access restriction (read, write, execute) you could check for each level by checking the corresponding bit.

rwx
---
110

110 in base 2 translates to 6 in base 10.

So you can easily check if someone is allowed to e.g. read the file by and'ing the permission field with the wanted permission.

Pseudocode:

PERM_READ = 4
PERM_WRITE = 2
PERM_EXEC = 1

user_permissions = 6

if (user_permissions & PERM_READ == TRUE) then
  // this will be reached, as 6 & 4 is true
fi

You need a working understanding of binary representation of numbers and logical operators to understand bit fields.