& Operator (C# Reference)
The & operator can function as either a unary or a binary operator.
The unary & operator returns the address of its operand (requires unsafe context).
Binary & operators are predefined for the integral types and bool. For integral types, & computes the logical bitwise AND of its operands. For bool operands, & computes the logical AND of its operands; that is, the result is true if and only if both its operands are true.
The & operator evaluates both operators regardless of the first one's value. For example:
int i = 0; if (false & ++i == 1) { // i is incremented, but the conditional // expression evaluates to false, so // this block does not execute. }
User-defined types can overload the binary & operator (see operator). Operations on integral types are generally allowed on enumeration. When a binary operator is overloaded, the corresponding assignment operator, if any, is also implicitly overloaded.
class BitwiseAnd { static void Main() { // The following two statements perform logical ANDs. Console.WriteLine(true & false); Console.WriteLine(true & true); // The following line performs a bitwise AND of F8 (1111 1000) and // 3F (0011 1111). // 1111 1000 // 0011 1111 // --------- // 0011 1000 or 38 Console.WriteLine("0x{0:x}", 0xf8 & 0x3f); } } // Output: // False // True // 0x38
