2.2.4.1 Bit-string Operations on Integer Types

Plain and long integer types support additional operations that make sense only for bit-strings. Negative numbers are treated as their 2's complement value (for long integers, this assumes a sufficiently large number of bits that no overflow occurs during the operation).

The priorities of the binary bit-wise operations are all lower than the numeric operations and higher than the comparisons; the unary operation "~" has the same priority as the other unary numeric operations ("+" and "-").

This table lists the bit-string operations sorted in ascending priority (operations in the same box have the same priority):

Operation Result Notes

x | y bitwise or of x and y
x ^ y bitwise exclusive or of x and y
x & y bitwise and of x and y
x « n x shifted left by n bits (1), (2)
x » n x shifted right by n bits (1), (3)
~x the bits of x inverted

Notes:

(1): Negative shift counts are illegal and cause a ValueError to be raised.
(2): A left shift by n bits is equivalent to multiplication by pow(2, n) without overflow check.
(3): A right shift by n bits is equivalent to division by pow(2, n) without overflow check.

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