Operations for Algorithms

本文列几个 Bit Twiddling Hacks (stanford.edu)文中常用的算法：

Compute the sign of an integer

int v;      // we want to find the sign of v
int sign;   // the result goes here 

// CHAR_BIT is the number of bits per byte (normally 8).
sign = -(v < 0);  // if v < 0 then -1, else 0. 
// or, to avoid branching on CPUs with flag registers (IA32):
sign = -(int)((unsigned int)((int)v) >> (sizeof(int) * CHAR_BIT - 1));
// or, for one less instruction (but not portable):
sign = v >> (sizeof(int) * CHAR_BIT - 1); 

Detect if two integers have opposite signs

int x, y;               // input values to compare signs

bool f = ((x ^ y) < 0); // true iff x and y have opposite signs

Compute the integer absolute value (abs) without branching

int v;           // we want to find the absolute value of v
unsigned int r;  // the result goes here 
int const mask = v >> sizeof(int) * CHAR_BIT - 1;

r = (v + mask) ^ mask;

Patented variation:

r = (v ^ mask) - mask;

Compute the minimum (min) or maximum (max) of two integers without branching

int x;  // we want to find the minimum of x and y
int y;   
int r;  // the result goes here 

r = y ^ ((x ^ y) & -(x < y)); // min(x, y)

To find the maximum, use:

r = x ^ ((x ^ y) & -(x < y)); // max(x, y)

Determining if an integer is a power of 2

unsigned int v; // we want to see if v is a power of 2
bool f;         // the result goes here 

f = (v & (v - 1)) == 0;

Note that 0 is incorrectly considered a power of 2 here. To remedy this, use:

f = v && !(v & (v - 1));

Sign extending from a constant bit-width

Sign extension is automatic for built-in types, such as chars and ints. But suppose you have a signed two's complement number, x, that is stored using only b bits. Moreover, suppose you want to convert x to an int, which has more than b bits. A simple copy will work if x is positive, but if negative, the sign must be extended. For example, if we have only 4 bits to store a number, then -3 is represented as 1101 in binary. If we have 8 bits, then -3 is 11111101. The most-significant bit of the 4-bit representation is replicated sinistrally to fill in the destination when we convert to a representation with more bits; this is sign extending. In C, sign extension from a constant bit-width is trivial, since bit fields may be specified in structs or unions. For example, to convert from 5 bits to an full integer:

int x; // convert this from using 5 bits to a full int
int r; // resulting sign extended number goes here
struct {signed int x:5;} s;
r = s.x = x;

The following is a C++ template function that uses the same language feature to convert from B bits in one operation (though the compiler is generating more, of course).

template <typename T, unsigned B>
inline T signextend(const T x)
{
  struct {T x:B;} s;
  return s.x = x;
}

int r = signextend<signed int,5>(x);  // sign extend 5 bit number x to r

Conditionally set or clear bits without branching

bool f;         // conditional flag
unsigned int m; // the bit mask
unsigned int w; // the word to modify:  if (f) w |= m; else w &= ~m; 

w ^= (-f ^ w) & m;

// OR, for superscalar CPUs:
w = (w & ~m) | (-f & m);

Merge bits from two values according to a mask

unsigned int a;    // value to merge in non-masked bits
unsigned int b;    // value to merge in masked bits
unsigned int mask; // 1 where bits from b should be selected; 0 where from a.
unsigned int r;    // result of (a & ~mask) | (b & mask) goes here

r = a ^ ((a ^ b) & mask); 

Counting bits set, in parallel

The best method for counting bits in a 32-bit integer v is the following:

v = v - ((v >> 1) & 0x55555555);                    // reuse input as temporary
v = (v & 0x33333333) + ((v >> 2) & 0x33333333);     // temp
c = ((v + (v >> 4) & 0xF0F0F0F) * 0x1010101) >> 24; // count

Swapping values with XOR

#define SWAP(a, b) (((a) ^= (b)), ((b) ^= (a)), ((a) ^= (b)))

Reverse an N-bit quantity in parallel in 5 * lg(N) operations:

unsigned int v; // 32-bit word to reverse bit order

// swap odd and even bits
v = ((v >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((v & 0x55555555) << 1);
// swap consecutive pairs
v = ((v >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((v & 0x33333333) << 2);
// swap nibbles ... 
v = ((v >> 4) & 0x0F0F0F0F) | ((v & 0x0F0F0F0F) << 4);
// swap bytes
v = ((v >> 8) & 0x00FF00FF) | ((v & 0x00FF00FF) << 8);
// swap 2-byte long pairs
v = ( v >> 16             ) | ( v               << 16);