Bitwise operators — +& +| +^ +< +>

Integer bit manipulation — and, or, xor, and shifts, all with a + prefix.

Raku's bitwise operators work on the binary representation of integers. They all carry a + prefix to mark them as the numeric (bit) versions — +&, +|, +^ for and/or/xor, and +<, +> for left and right shifts. (The ?-prefixed forms ?&, ?|, ?^ are the boolean versions, and ~&/~|/~^ are the string ones.)

and, or, xor #

Each operator combines the bits of its two operands.

say 0b1100 +& 0b1010;
say 0b1100 +| 0b1010;
say 0b1100 +^ 0b1010;

8
14
6

Reading the bits: 1100 +& 1010 keeps only bits set in both → 1000 (8); +| keeps bits set in either → 1110 (14); +^ keeps bits set in exactly one → 0110 (6). The 0b… literals are just a readable way to write the same integers (see Integer literals).

Shifting #

+< shifts the bits left (multiply by a power of two); +> shifts right (integer divide).

say 1 +< 8;
say 256 +> 2;

256
64

1 +< 8 moves the single bit eight places left — 2⁸ = 256; 256 +> 2 drops two low bits — 256 / 4 = 64.

Notes #

• The operands are Ints of arbitrary width, so shifts never overflow: 1 +< 100 is an exact 31-digit integer.
• These are the +-prefixed numeric bitwise ops. The boolean set ?&, ?|, ?^ coerces operands to Bool first; the string set ~&, ~|, ~^ works on the byte values of strings.
• To see the bits, .base(2) renders an integer in binary — 12.base(2) is "1100" — the inverse of the 0b… literal.