The compound bitwise OR operator |= is often used with a variable and a constant to "set" (set to 1) particular bits in a variable.
A review of the Bitwise OR | operator:
0 0 1 1 operand1 0 1 0 1 operand2 ---------- 0 1 1 1 (operand1 | operand2) - returned result
x |= y; // equivalent to x = x | y;x: variable. Allowed data types: char, int, long
y: variable or constant. Allowed data types: char, int, long
Bits that are "bitwise ORed" with 0 are unchanged, so if myByte is a byte variable,
myByte | B00000000 = myByte;Bits that are "bitwise ORed" with 1 are set to 1 so:
myByte | B11111111 = B11111111;Because we are dealing with bits in a bitwise operator - it is convenient to use the binary formatter with constants. The numbers are still the same value in other representations, they are just not as easy to understand. Also, B00000000 is shown for clarity, but zero in any number format is zero.
Consequently - to set bits 0 & 1 of a variable, while leaving the rest of the variable unchanged, use the compound bitwise OR operator (|=) with the constant B00000011
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 variable 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 mask ---------------------- 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1
bits unchanged
bits set
Here is the same representation with the variables bits replaced with the symbol x
x x x x x x x x variable 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 mask ---------------------- x x x x x x 1 1
bits unchanged
bits set
So if:
myByte = B10101010;
myByte |= B00000011 == B10101011;LANGUAGE | Bitwise OR