What is Difference between some operators |, ^, &, &^. in Golang

Question

Recently I read golang specification and faced with some interesting operators:
&    bitwise AND            integers
|    bitwise OR             integers
^    bitwise XOR            integers
&^   bit clear (AND NOT)    integers

I've tried to play with it, but the only one I have understood is that "|" add integers and "+" operator additionally work with floats, strings etc.

What they are used for in practice? Could anyone give some explanation about these 4 operators above?

Chris Gregori · Accepted Answer

Bitwise operators come into play when you have to work with byte- or bit-level data. Here I list a handful of examples using bit operations with code samples (in no particular order): 1. They are common and part of many algorithms in cryptography and hash functions (e.g. MD5). 2. They are also often used if you want to "save" space and you pack multiple "bool" variables into one int for example, you assign a bit to each bool variable. You have to use bitwise operators to be able to individually change/read the bits. For example packing 8 bits/bools into one int: flags := 0x00 // All flags are 0 flags |= 0x02 // Turn the 2nd bit to 1 (leaving rest unchanged) flags |= 0xff // Turn 8 bits (0..7) to 1 flags &= 0xfe // Set the lowest bit to 0 (leaving rest unchanged) istrue := flags&0x04 != 0 // Test if 3rd bit is 1 For what they technically do check out the comments in this

Go Language

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