1. What is Right Shift Operator?

The right shift operator (>>) shifts the bits of a number to the right by a specified number of positions. It's equivalent to integer division by 2 raised to the power of the shift amount.

2. How Does Right Shift Work?

The right shift operation can be represented as:

Which is equivalent to:

Where:

• \( \text{num} \) — The integer to be shifted
• \( \text{bits} \) — Number of positions to shift right (must be ≥ 0)
• \( \text{result} \) — The shifted integer value

Example: 16 >> 2 = 4 (since 16/2² = 4)

3. Practical Applications

Details: Right shift operations are commonly used in:

• Low-level programming and bit manipulation
• Optimizing division by powers of 2
• Extracting specific bits from packed data
• Implementing efficient mathematical operations

4. Using the Calculator

Tips: Enter any integer number and the number of bits to shift right. The result will be an integer value.

5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: What happens when you right shift a negative number?
A: The behavior depends on the programming language. In most cases, it performs an arithmetic right shift (preserves the sign bit).

Q2: Is right shift the same as division by 2?
A: Only for positive numbers. For negative numbers, results may differ between right shift and division.

Q3: What's the difference between >> and >>> operators?
A: >> is arithmetic right shift (preserves sign), >>> is logical right shift (doesn't preserve sign, fills with zeros).

Q4: What happens if I shift more bits than the size of the number?
A: The result is implementation-dependent but typically becomes 0 for positive numbers and -1 for negative numbers.

Q5: Why use right shift instead of division?
A: Right shift is often faster than division at the hardware level, making it useful for performance-critical code.