C - Operating exclusively with XOR

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Introduction

XOR is the exclusive OR operator.

In the XOR operation, bits are compared with one another, just like the & and | operators.

When two bits are identical, XOR returns 0.

When the two bits are different, XOR returns 1.

C language XOR operator is the caret character: ^.

Demo

#include <stdio.h> 

char *to_binary(int n); 

int main() //from  w ww.j  av a 2s .  c  o  m
{ 
   int a,x,r; 

   a = 73; 
   x = 170; 

   printf("  %s %3d\n",to_binary(a),a); 
   printf("^ %s %3d\n",to_binary(x),x); 
   r = a ^ x; 
   printf("= %s %3d\n",to_binary(r),r); 
   return(0); 
} 

char *to_binary(int n) 
{ 
   static char bin[9]; 
   int x; 

   for(x=0;x<8;x++) 
   { 
       bin[x] = n & 0x80 ? '1' : '0'; 
       n <<= 1; 
   } 
   bin[x] = '\0'; 
   return(bin); 
}

Result

If you use the same XOR value on a variable twice, you get back the variable's original value.

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