How do I manipulate bits in Python?

Question

In C I could, for example, zero out bit #10 in a 32 bit unsigned value like so:

unsigned long value = 0xdeadbeef;
value &= ~(1<<10);

How do I do that in Python ?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/147713/how-do-i-manipulate-bits-in-python

Answer 1

Bitwise operations on Python ints work much like in C. The &, | and ^ operators in Python work just like in C. The ~ operator works as for a signed integer in C; that is, ~x computes -x-1.

You have to be somewhat careful with left shifts, since Python integers aren't fixed-width. Use bit masks to obtain the low order bits. For example, to do the equivalent of shift of a 32-bit integer do (x << 5) & 0xffffffff.