How do I programmatically return the max of two integers without using any comparison operators and without using if, else, etc?

Question

How do I programmatically return the maximum of two integers without using any comparison operators and without using if, else, etc?

Answer 1

http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerMinOrMax

r = x - ((x - y) & -(x < y)); // max(x, y)

You can have fun with arithmetically shifting (x - y) to saturate the sign bit, but this is usually enough. Or you can test the high bit, always fun.