Bitwise Operators

Expression is any valid expression containing the integer data type, which is transformed into a binary number for the bitwise operation. The tilde (~) cannot be used as part of a user-defined name.

The bitwise NOT operator returns the reverse of its single operand of the integer data type. All 1’s are converted to 0’s, and all 0’s are converted to 1’s.

The following query performs the complement operation on a numeric literal:

SELECT ~12

The result is -13. The result is negative because the complement operator complements the sign bit also.

The bitwise OR operator performs a bitwise logical OR operation between two operands. OR compares two bits and assigns a value equal to 1 to the result if the values of either or both the bits are equal to 1. If neither bit in the input expressions has a value of 1, the bit in the result is set to 0. The OR operator can take only numeric values as its operands.

expression | expression

Expression is any valid expression containing the integer data type, which is transformed into a binary number for the bitwise operation.

In a bitwise OR operation involving operands of different integer data types, the argument of the smaller data type is converted to the larger data type or to the data type that is immediately larger than the larger of the two operands.

If any of the operands involved in a bitwise OR operation is signed, then the resultant value will also be signed.

The following could obtain a list of foreign key and primary constraints:

select B.Xf$Name "Table name", C.Xe$Name "Column name",

IF (Xi$Flags & 8192 = 0, 'Primary key', 'Foreign key') "Key type" from X$Index A, X$File B, X$Field C

where (A.Xi$Flags & (16384 | 8192)) > 0 AND A.Xi$File = B.Xf$Id AND A.Xi$Field = C.Xe$Id

OR (exclusive)

The bitwise exclusive OR operator performs a bitwise logical exclusive OR operation between two operands. Exclusive OR compares two bits and assigns a value equal to 0 to the result if the values of both the bits are either 0 or 1. Otherwise, this operator sets the corresponding result bit to 1.

expression ^ expression

Expression is any valid expression containing the integer data type, which is transformed into a binary number for the bitwise operation. The circumflex (^) cannot be used as part of a user-defined name.

In a bitwise exclusive OR operation involving operands of different integer data types, the argument of the smaller data type is converted to the larger data type or to the data type that is immediately larger than the larger of the two operands.

If any of the operands involved in a bitwise exclusive OR operation is signed, then the resultant value is also signed.

The following SQL query performs the exclusive OR on two numeric literals:

SELECT 12 ^ 8

The result is 4.

Truth Table

The following is the truth table for bitwise operations.

Table 46

Truth Table for Bitwise Operations