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The two basic types are the arithmetic left shift and the arithmetic right shift. For binary numbers it is a bitwise operation that shifts all of the bits of its operand; every bit in the operand is simply moved a given number of bit positions, and the vacant bit-positions are filled in.
Left arithmetic shift Right arithmetic shift. In an arithmetic shift, the bits that are shifted out of either end are discarded. In a left arithmetic shift, zeros are shifted in on the right; in a right arithmetic shift, the sign bit (the MSB in two's complement) is shifted in on the left, thus preserving the sign of the operand.
The symbol of left shift operator is <<. It shifts each bit in its left-hand operand to the left by the number of positions indicated by the right-hand operand. It works opposite to that of right shift operator. Thus by doing ch << 1 in the above example (11100101) we have 11001010. Blank spaces generated are filled up by zeroes as above.
Logical right shift differs from arithmetic right shift. Thus, many languages have different operators for them. For example, in Java and JavaScript, the logical right shift operator is >>>, but the arithmetic right shift operator is >>. (Java has only one left shift operator (<<), because left shift via logic and arithmetic have the same effect.)
Sometimes, such operations may be used as arithmetic short-cuts, and may have other computational benefits as well. For example, an arithmetic shift left of a binary number is the equivalent of multiplication by a (positive, integral) power of 2.
Because the denominator is a power of two, the multiplication can be implemented as an arithmetic shift to the left and the division as an arithmetic shift to the right; on many processors shifts are faster than multiplication and division.
ALU shift operations cause operand A (or B) to shift left or right (depending on the opcode) and the shifted operand appears at Y. Simple ALUs typically can shift the operand by only one bit position, whereas more complex ALUs employ barrel shifters that allow them to shift the operand by an arbitrary number of bits in one operation. In all ...
Multiplication by two can be done by adding a number to itself, or subtracting itself after a-trit-left-shifting. An arithmetic shift left of a balanced ternary number is the equivalent of multiplication by a (positive, integral) power of 3; and an arithmetic shift right of a balanced ternary number is the equivalent of division by a (positive ...