c++coperators

C not operator applied to int?

I have

int x = 5;
printf("%d", x); //i get 5... expected

x = !x;
printf("%d", x);// i get 0... hmm

5 in binary is: 0101 if we apply the inverse to each bit, we should get 1010, but ! is not necessarily an inverter, it's a logical operator. Why do i get a 0 ?

is the reason that, in C, a positive number is treated as true and so !-ing it would result in 0? is this compiler specific?

Solution

  • The not (!) operator returns either 0 or 1, depending on whether the input is non-zero or 0 respectively.

    If you are looking for a bitwise negation, try ~x.