You will find bitwise operations invaluable for most cryptographic algorithms.

Bitwise operations are used all the time in graphics: for example, masking or combining two images.

You can get pretty creative with binary logic. Here's an interesting link to some clever bit-wise tricks: Bit Twiddling Hacks

The & (and) and | (or) operators are quite common in the Win32 and DirectX APIs (among, I'm sure, lots of others) to comine groups of options.

For example:

DWORD FVF=D3DFVF_XYZ | D3DFVF_NORMAL | D3DFVF_TEX1;

If, for the sake of the argument, these values were defined like (which they probably aren't):

const DWORD D3DFVF_XYZ=1;const DWORD D3DFVF_DIFFUSE=2;const DWORD D3DFVF_NORMAL=4;const DWORD D3DFVF_TEX1=8;

then their bit representations (in 8-bit to make it easier to type) are:

1 - 000000012 - 000000104 - 000001008 - 00001000

If you bitwise OR two values together, the result has a 1 in any column where either or both of the two value's corresponding bits are true.

So 1 | 4 is

0000000100000100--------00000101

and that result | 8 is:

0000010100001000--------00001101

It is then possible to test for the presence of a set bit with &, like:

if(FVF & D3DFVF_TEX1) // FVF has one set of texture coordinates

This depends on the fact that doing a bitwise and with a mask sets each result's bit if, and only if, both corresponding bits in the arguments are true.

0000110100001000--------00001000

Since the fourth bit, which is the only one set in the mask D3DFVF_TEX1 (or 8), the result will only be non-zero if the fourth bit in FVF is also set.


An interesting property of XOR is that if you XOR a value against a second value, the result XOR'd against the second value will give you back your original value:

00100101 - A10110110 - B--------10010011 - C10010011 - C10110110 - B--------00100101 - A

This makes XOR very useful in encryption. As a simple example, you can XOR every character in a text string against a given number. If you then XOR each encrypted character against the code number, you get the original text file back, but if you need to know the code number to know what to XOR against.

If you try writing your own B&W graphics API you'll have a whole other level of appreciation for bitwise operations.

Quote:Original post by h3ro
The through is that im working on my own 2d graphics api (colours/alpha blending), and I cant say that I have found many places to use bit shifting.

Does anyone know of any tips that apply to 2d graphics?

Yes.
The good news is that if you're not using bit-shifting and other bitwise operations much, then you probably have a huge potential for performance optimisations later.

e.g. Here's a function that accurately converts a colour value from 16-bit colour to 32-bit colour; Nothing but SHIFTs, ORs and ANDs.

unsigned long X1R5G5B5toARGB32(unsigned short o) {    const unsigned long r = o&0x7C00, g = o&0x03E0, b = o&0x1F;    return (unsigned long)((((((r>>7)|(r>>12))<<8) | (g>>2)|(g>>7))<<8) | (b<<3)|(b>>2));}

I run into use for binary operators all the time when doing networking, cryptography, or trying to pack data down into smaller sizes (which is often the case with the networking).

Binary operations often don't have much use or value to you until you are working on a bit level. The most common and probably most simple example is combining flags with the OR operator like mentioned previously. On the other side, to check which flags are set, you would use the AND operator. Like Nypyren mentioned, you will run into AND and OR all over the place.

Either way, its important to know how they work. :)