^ Operator (C# Reference)
Visual Studio 2010
Updated: December 2010
Binary ^ operators are predefined for the integral types and bool. For integral types, ^ computes the bitwise exclusive-OR of its operands. For bool operands, ^ computes the logical exclusive-or of its operands; that is, the result is true if and only if exactly one of its operands is true.
User-defined types can overload the ^ operator (see operator). Operations on integral types are generally allowed on enumeration.
class XOR
{
static void Main()
{
// Logical exclusive-OR
// When one operand is true and the other is false, exclusive-OR
// returns True.
Console.WriteLine(true ^ false);
// When both operands are false, exclusive-OR returns False.
Console.WriteLine(false ^ false);
// When both operands are true, exclusive-OR returns False.
Console.WriteLine(true ^ true);
// Bitwise exclusive-OR
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 0 and 1 returns 1.
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0x0 ^ 0x1, 2));
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 0 and 0 returns 0.
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0x0 ^ 0x0, 2));
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 1 and 1 returns 0.
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0x1 ^ 0x1, 2));
// With more than one digit, perform the exclusive-OR column by column.
// 10
// 11
// --
// 01
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 10 (2) and 11 (3) returns 01 (1).
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0x2 ^ 0x3, 2));
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 101 (5) and 011 (3) returns 110 (6).
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0x5 ^ 0x3, 2));
// Bitwise exclusive-OR of 1111 (decimal 15, hexadecimal F) and 0101 (5)
// returns 1010 (decimal 10, hexadecimal A).
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0xf ^ 0x5, 2));
// Finally, bitwise exclusive-OR of 11111000 (decimal 248, hexadecimal F8)
// and 00111111 (decimal 63, hexadecimal 3F) returns 11000111, which is
// 199 in decimal, C7 in hexadecimal.
Console.WriteLine("Bitwise result: {0}", Convert.ToString(0xf8 ^ 0x3f, 2));
}
}
/*
Output:
True
False
False
Bitwise result: 1
Bitwise result: 0
Bitwise result: 0
Bitwise result: 1
Bitwise result: 110
Bitwise result: 1010
Bitwise result: 11000111
*/
The computation of 0xf8 ^ 0x3f in the previous example performs a bitwise exclusive-OR of the following two binary values, which correspond to the hexadecimal values F8 and 3F:
1111 1000
0011 1111
The result of the exclusive-OR is 1100 0111, which is C7 in hexadecimal.
