Rust - Bitwise XOR operator

The Bitwise XOR operator (^) is a binary operator which takes two bit patterns of equal length and performs the logical exclusive OR operation on each pair of corresponding bits. It returns 1 if only one of the bits is 1, else returns 0.

The example below describes how bitwise XOR operator works:

50 ^ 25 returns 43

     50    ->    110010  (In Binary)
   ^ 25    ->  ^ 011001  (In Binary)
    ----        --------
     43    <-    101011  (In Binary)  

The code of using Bitwise XOR operator (^) is given below:

fn main() {
  let x = 50;
  let y = 25;

  //Bitwise XOR operation
  let z = x ^ y;

  //Displaying the result
  println!("z = {}", z);
}

The output of the above code will be:

z = 43

Example: Swap two numbers without using temporary variable

The bitwise XOR operator can be used to swap the value of two variables. Consider the example below.

fn main() {
  let mut x = 10;
  let mut y = 25;

  println!("Before Swap:");
  println!("x = {}", x);
  println!("y = {}", y);

  //Swap technique
  x = x ^ y;
  y = x ^ y;
  x = x ^ y;

  println!("\nAfter Swap:");
  println!("x = {}", x);
  println!("y = {}", y);
}

The above code will give the following output:

Before Swap:
x = 10
y = 25

After Swap:
x = 25
y = 10