How do i get the lower 8 bits of int?

Question

Lets say I have an int variable n = 8. On most machines this will be a 32 bit value. How can I only get the lower 8 bits (lowest byte) of this in binary? Also how can i acce

Answer 1

You can test if a particular bit is set in a number using << and &, ie:

if (num & (1<<3)) ...

will test if the fourth bit is set or not.

Similarly, you can extract just the lowest 8 bits (as an integer) by using & with a number which only has the lowest 8 bits set, ie num & 255 or num & 0xFF (in hexadecimal).