C# - Bitwise XOR operator

The Bitwise XOR operator (^) is a binary operator which takes two bit patterns of equal length and performs the logical exclusive OR operation on each pair of corresponding bits. It returns 1 if only one of the bits is 1, else returns 0.

Bit_1	Bit_2	Bit_1 ^ Bit_2
0	0	0
1	0	1
0	1	1
1	1	0

The example below describes how bitwise XOR operator works:

50 ^ 25 returns 43

     50    ->    110010  (In Binary)
   ^ 25    ->  ^ 011001  (In Binary)
    ----        --------
     43    <-    101011  (In Binary)

The code of using Bitwise XOR operator (^) is given below:

using System;

class MyProgram {
  static void Main(string[] args) {
    int x = 50;
    int y = 25;
    int z;

    //Bitwise XOR operation
    z = x ^ y;

    //Displaying the result
    Console.WriteLine("z = "+z);
  }
}

The output of the above code will be:

z = 43

Example: Swap two numbers without using temporary variable

The bitwise XOR operator can be used to swap the value of two variables. Consider the example below.

using System;

class MyProgram {
  static void swap(int x, int y) {
    Console.WriteLine("Before Swap.");
    Console.WriteLine("x = " + x);
    Console.WriteLine("y = " + y);

    //Swap technique
    x = x ^ y;
    y = x ^ y;
    x = x ^ y;

    Console.WriteLine("After Swap.");
    Console.WriteLine("x = " + x);
    Console.WriteLine("y = " + y);
  }  

  static void Main(string[] args) {
    swap(10, 25);
  }
}

The above code will give the following output:

Before Swap.
x = 10
y = 25
After Swap.
x = 25
y = 10

❮ C# - Operators