Which bitwise operator is suitable for turning OFF a particular bit in a number?
Bitwise AND operator (&), one’s complement operator(~)
Example: To unset the 4th bit of byte_data or to turn off a particular bit in a number.
Explanation:
Consider,
char byte_data= 0b00010111;
byte_data= (byte_data)&(~(1<<4));
1 can be represented in binary as 0b00000001 = (1<<4)
<< is a left bit shift operator,
it shifts the bit 1 by 4 places towards left.
(1<<4) becomes 0b00010000
And ~ is the one’s complement operator in C language.
So ~(1<<4) = complement of 0b00010000
= 0b11101111
Replacing value of byte_data and ~(1<<4) in
(byte_data)&(~(1<<4));
we get (0b00010111) & (0b11101111)
Perform AND operation to below bytes.
00010111
11101111
00000111
Thus the 4th bit is unset.