Bitwise Left shift << operator

Example

Let’s take a number 14.

Binary representation of 14 is 00001110 (for the sake of clarity let’s write it using 8 bit)

14 = (00001110) ₂

Then 14 << 1 will shift the binary sequence 1 position to the left side.

Like,

Pictorial Explanation

Application of Bitwise Left Shift Operator

In the above diagram, you can notice that whenever we shift the number one position to left, the output value will be exactly number * 2.

If we shift 14 by 1 position to the left, output will be 14 * 2 = 28.

If we shift 14 by 2 position to the left, output will be 14 * 4 = 56.

Example

Let’s assume the number as 12

If we shift the number 3 position to the left.

Then the output will be,

Program using Bitwise Left shift Operator

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int var = 2;
 
    printf("var * 2  = %d \n",var<<1); //1 position to the left
    printf("var * 4  = %d \n",var<<2); //2 position to the left
    printf("var * 8  = %d \n",var<<3); //3 position to the left
    printf("var * 16 = %d \n",var<<4); //4 position to the left
    printf("var * 32 = %d \n",var<<5); //5 position to the left
 
    return 0;
}