c++coptimizationbit-manipulation

Position of least significant bit that is set

I am looking for an efficient way to determine the position of the least significant bit that is set in an integer, e.g. for 0x0FF0 it would be 4.

A trivial implementation is this:

unsigned GetLowestBitPos(unsigned value)
{
   assert(value != 0); // handled separately

   unsigned pos = 0;
   while (!(value & 1))
   {
      value >>= 1;
      ++pos;
   }
   return pos;
}

Any ideas how to squeeze some cycles out of it?

(Note: this question is for people that enjoy such things, not for people to tell me xyzoptimization is evil.)

[edit] Thanks everyone for the ideas! I've learnt a few other things, too. Cool!

Solution

  • Bit Twiddling Hacks offers an excellent collection of, er, bit twiddling hacks, with performance/optimisation discussion attached. My favourite solution for your problem (from that site) is «multiply and lookup»:

    unsigned int v;  // find the number of trailing zeros in 32-bit v 
int r;           // result goes here
static const int MultiplyDeBruijnBitPosition[32] = 
{
  0, 1, 28, 2, 29, 14, 24, 3, 30, 22, 20, 15, 25, 17, 4, 8, 
  31, 27, 13, 23, 21, 19, 16, 7, 26, 12, 18, 6, 11, 5, 10, 9
};
r = MultiplyDeBruijnBitPosition[((uint32_t)((v & -v) * 0x077CB531U)) >> 27];

    Helpful references: