Bits
by Ximmer

 A byte is a value that can hold a number from 0 to 255. But what if you don't need a number from 0 to 255? Say you only want a number from 0 to 15.  The answer... Bits.  A Bit is a value containing either a 1, or a 0.  But the problem is: How can I Get these bits out of the Byte? The answer: The Boolean operators. 

 The Boolean operators are Bitwise functions (That is they manipulate Bits). Let's start with the AND Boolean operator 

 The AND operator is the most common, so I'll use it as an example. 

 Lets say we have A 2 bytes.  The first bytes value is 170, The second Bytes Value is 15. If we use the Logical AND operator (170 AND 15) we get 10. How?  The And function goes through the Bytes Bits (However many their are) and Says If Byte 1's first Bit is 1 "AND" Byte 2's first Bit is 1 then NEWByte's first bit is 1.   Heres the math. 

           ______Byte1 and Byte2's Bits are both 1 
           | |   | 
Byte1  10101010  | 
Byte2  00001111  | 
       --------  | 
       00001010  | 
           | |   | 
           ------- 

 Therefore 10101010 AND 00001111 = 00001010 
              170           15          10 

(E.G. IF BIT1 = 1 AND BIT2 = 1 THEN BIT3 = 1) 

 There.  That was simple.  Now I'll give the math for the other functions. 

OR (Inclusive OR) 

Byte1  10101010 
Byte2  00001111 
       -------- 
       10101111 

(E.G. IF BIT1 = 1 OR BIT2 = 1 THEN BIT3 = 1) 

 As you can see here, if either of the bits are set, then the new bit is set. 

XOR (Exclusive OR) 

Byte1  10101010 
Byte2  00001111 
       -------- 
       10100101 

(E.G. NONE) 

 This ones more complicated.  IF (BIT1 = 1 OR BIT2 = 1) AND NOT(BIT1 = 1 AND BIT2 = 2) THEN BIT3 = 1 In other words.  XOR Sets the bit to 1 if the Bits are opposite each other (E.G. 0-1 or 1-0) otherwise it's 0. 

 Now that you understand the Boolean operators we can learn how to extract individual Bits. 

Say we want to find out what the first bit is in the number 56.  First off we say that the AND function will return a 1 ONLY if Both bits are set.  So we see that the Number 1 has a Bit structure that looks like 00000001b So we take 56 AND 1 and we get 0 therefore Bit one of 56 = 0. 

Now Binary is a BASE 2 Number system.  So we can go 2 ^ BitNum% and get the AND value of the Bit! 

So 2 ^ 0 = 1   (00000001) 
   2 ^ 1 = 2   (00000010) 
   2 ^ 2 = 4   (00000100) 
   2 ^ 3 = 8   (00001000) 
   2 ^ 4 = 16  (00010000) 
   2 ^ 5 = 32  (00100000) 
   2 ^ 6 = 64  (01000000) 
   2 ^ 7 = 128 (10000000) 

Therefor a good Bit extraction formula would be 

IF (Byte AND (2 ^ BitNum)) THEN Bit = 1 

But here you'll note thatwere getting answers that aren't just 1.  So we need to SHIFT the bits to the right the BitNum were looking for.  This method is called DIVIDING ooOOOOOOOooooo... Scary We need to divide the the answer by the Bit we ANDed by so now we get...: TADA 

IF (Byte AND (2 ^ BitNum)) / BitNum ^ 2 THEN Bit = 1 

Heres a Sample BIT extracter 

Defint A-Z 
FUNCTION BIT (Byte, BitNum) 
 BIT = (Byte AND(2 ^ BitNum)) / BitNum ^ 2 
END FUNCTION 


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The author of this tutorial is Ximmer, who can be reached at rebel@power-tech.net.