How does the bitwise complement operator (~ tilde) work?

Question

Why is it that ~2 is equal to -3? How does ~ operator work?

Answer 1

The bit-wise operator is a unary operator which works on sign and magnitude method as per my experience and knowledge.

For example ~2 would result in -3.

This is because the bit-wise operator would first represent the number in sign and magnitude which is 0000 0010 (8 bit operator) where the MSB is the sign bit.

Then later it would take the negative number of 2 which is -2.

-2 is represented as 1000 0010 (8 bit operator) in sign and magnitude.

Later it adds a 1 to the LSB (1000 0010 + 1) which gives you 1000 0011.

Which is -3.