It is quick and easy to determine shared/different bits between two binary numbers by AND or XOR. Let's say we have A: 10011 and B:11001 we can get the difference.

10011 XOR 11001 = 01010 (1s are different 0 similar.)

Are there any quick and easy logic or arithmetic operations that could produce similar but asymmetric output (1s showing these that are for example present in A but missing in B or vice vs.)

Example 10011 ??? 11001 = 00010 (1s mean present in left hand operand missing in right)

Could it be done with some quick arithmetic/logic or would I have to start some loop to go through the comparisons one by one?

I got to this question when I was contemplating on storing some presence/absence data in bytes as bit flags (for memory efficiency) -- and were already gleeful in the fact that were I do thusly I could then do quick and easy data diffing operations, but for many applications the direction of difference is also important.

CodePudding user response：

The more canonical way to express this is A AND (NOT B), where NOT flips all bits.

CodePudding user response：

tkausl - comment on the question answers it successfully. (A XOR B) AND A would really do the trick. XOR would generate the difference between A and B and then AND mask with A to show only these that are present in A. Result difference showing these bits that are set in A but not in B.