Reverse Bits of a Number in DSA C - Build from Scratch

Reverse Bits of a Number

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are working with a simple device that stores numbers in binary form. Sometimes, you need to reverse the order of bits in a number to fix how the device reads data.

🎯 Goal: You will write a program to reverse the bits of an 8-bit number. For example, if the number is 13 (binary 00001101), reversing the bits will give 176 (binary 10110000).

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called num with the value 13

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called reversed_num and initialize it to 0

Use a for loop with variable i from 0 to 7 to reverse the bits of num

Print the value of reversed_num after reversing the bits

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Bit reversal is used in digital signal processing and communication systems to reorder data bits for correct interpretation.

💼 Career

Understanding bitwise operations and bit manipulation is important for embedded systems programming, low-level device drivers, and performance optimization.

1

Create the initial number

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called num and set it to 13.

DSA C

#include 

int main() {
    // Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called num and set it to 13
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use unsigned char for an 8-bit number and assign 13 to num.

2

Create the reversed number variable

Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called reversed_num and initialize it to 0.

DSA C

#include 

int main() {
    unsigned char num = 13;
    // Create an 8-bit unsigned integer variable called reversed_num and set it to 0
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use unsigned char reversed_num = 0; to start with zero reversed bits.

3

Reverse the bits using a loop

Use a for loop with variable i from 0 to 7 to reverse the bits of num and store the result in reversed_num. Inside the loop, shift reversed_num left by 1, then add the least significant bit of num. Then shift num right by 1.

DSA C

#include 

int main() {
    unsigned char num = 13;
    unsigned char reversed_num = 0;

    // Use a for loop with i from 0 to 7 to reverse bits
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Shift reversed_num left by 1, add the last bit of num, then shift num right by 1 in each loop.

4

Print the reversed number

Print the value of reversed_num using printf with format specifier %u.

DSA C

#include 

int main() {
    unsigned char num = 13;
    unsigned char reversed_num = 0;

    for (int i = 0; i >= 1;
    }

    // Print the reversed_num
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use printf("%u\n", reversed_num); to print the reversed number.