What is the best way to add two numbers without using the + operator?

Question

A friend and I are going back and forth with brain-teasers and I have no idea how to solve this one. My assumption is that it\'s possible with some bitwise operators, but n

Answer 1

You can do it using bit-shifting and the AND operation.

#include 

int main()
{
    unsigned int x = 3, y = 1, sum, carry;
    sum = x ^ y; // Ex - OR x and y
    carry = x & y; // AND x and y
    while (carry != 0) {
        carry = carry << 1; // left shift the carry
        x = sum; // initialize x as sum
        y = carry; // initialize y as carry
        sum = x ^ y; // sum is calculated
        carry = x & y; /* carry is calculated, the loop condition is
                        evaluated and the process is repeated until
                        carry is equal to 0.
                        */
    }
    printf("%d\n", sum); // the program will print 4
    return 0;
}