Bitwise AND Operator: &

expression & expression

Remarks

The expressions may be other and-expressions, or (subject to the type restrictions mentioned below) equality expressions, relational expressions, additive expressions, multiplicative expressions, pointer to member expressions, cast expressions, unary expressions, postfix expressions, or primary expressions.

The bitwise AND operator (&) compares each bit of the first operand to the corresponding bit of the second operand. If both bits are 1, the corresponding result bit is set to 1. Otherwise, the corresponding result bit is set to 0.

Both operands to the bitwise AND operator must be of integral types. The usual arithmetic conversions covered in Arithmetic Conversions, are applied to the operands.

Operator Keyword for &

The bitand operator is the text equivalent of &. There are two ways to access the bitand operator in your programs: include the header file iso646.h, or compile with the /Za (Disable language extensions) compiler option.

Example

// expre_Bitwise_AND_Operator.cpp
// compile with: /EHsc
// Demonstrate bitwise AND
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
   unsigned short a = 0xFFFF;      // pattern 1111 ...
   unsigned short b = 0xAAAA;      // pattern 1010 ...

   cout  << hex << ( a & b ) << endl;   // prints "aaaa", pattern 1010 ...
}

See Also

Reference

C++ Bitwise Operators

C++ Operators

Operator Precedence and Associativity

C Bitwise Operators