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Bitwise operations on large numbers

Time:07-31

This works as expected:

> 0b1111
15
> 0b1111 & 0b1111
15

But this doesn't:

> 0b11111111111111111111111111111111
4294967295
> 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 & 0b11111111111111111111111111111111
-1

What's going on here? And how can I safely perform bitwise operations on large (up to 2^32) numbers in Javascript?

Update: This is below Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER so I don't believe there should be a loss of precision.

CodePudding user response:

What's going on here?

JavaScript's bitwise operators will interpret the result as a signed 32-bit number (one exception is the >>> operator), but apart from that, the result is correct.

And how can I safely perform bitwise operations on large (up to 2^32) numbers in Javascript?

Apply >>> 0 to the result so the result is interpreted as an unsigned 32 bit number:

let res = (0b11111111111111111111111111111111 
            & 0b11111111111111111111111111111111) >>> 0;

console.log(res);

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