The bit-shift operators (<<
and >>
) return the value of the left argument
shifted to the left (<<
) or to the right
(>>
) by the number of bits specified by the
right argument. The arguments should be integers. For example:
1 << 4; # returns 16 32 >> 4; # returns 2
Be careful, though. Results on large (or negative) numbers may vary depending on the number of bits your machine uses to represent integers.