Bitwise NOT in C - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Bitwise NOT Operation in C

📖 Scenario: You are working with a small embedded system that uses 8-bit registers. You need to invert the bits of a given number to control some hardware flags.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use the bitwise NOT operator ~ in C to invert bits of an 8-bit number.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable with a specific value

Create a variable to store the inverted bits

Use the bitwise NOT operator ~ to invert the bits

Print the original and inverted values

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Bitwise NOT is used in embedded systems to toggle hardware flags and invert control bits quickly.

💼 Career

Understanding bitwise operations is essential for firmware developers, systems programmers, and anyone working close to hardware.

1

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable

Create a variable called num of type unsigned char and set it to 170.

C

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use unsigned char to represent an 8-bit number and assign the value 170.

2

Create a variable to store the inverted bits

Create a variable called inverted of type unsigned char to hold the result of the bitwise NOT operation.

C

unsigned char num = 170;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Declare inverted as unsigned char without initializing it yet.

3

Invert the bits using the bitwise NOT operator

Assign to inverted the bitwise NOT of num using the ~ operator.

C

unsigned char num = 170;
unsigned char inverted;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use ~num to invert all bits of num and assign it to inverted.

4

Print the original and inverted values

Use printf to display the values of num and inverted as unsigned integers on separate lines.

C

unsigned char num = 170;
unsigned char inverted;
inverted = ~num;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use printf("Original: %u\n", num); and printf("Inverted: %u\n", inverted); to print the values.