Bit Manipulation Delphi in XML - Bitwise - delphi

Question

I am a student in high school and I am currently learning in Delphi XE3. We are learning about BIT manipulation. We have an assignment and while I have read a lot on the subject and understand the entire process of storing information in Bits and SHL/SHR I am having difficulty understanding how to do this process in Delphi.
The assignment is as follows:
Decimal Hexidecimal Binary
1 0x0001 0000000000000001
2 0x0002 0000000000000010
4 0x0004 0000000000000100
Passing an integer value in an XML file to identify the options set. For example. If I wanted to send option 1 and option 2, I would add 1+2=3. I would send 3 as the number to specify that options 1 and 2 are true.
On the client the binary value would be 0000000000000011 = 3
From what I have read I need to use a mask but I do not understand how to do this. How would do I use masks in Delphi ot obtain the individual values which would be True or False.
I tried doing this in a regular Integer variable but it always gets treated as an Integer and the result is very strange. If I convert the integer to a binary string representation and I iterate thru the characters the result is correct but I am assuming that I should not be doing this with strings. Any help or an example would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

You usually check if a particular bit is set in a Integer variable using the and binary operator, and you set individual bits using the or operator, like this:
const
OPTION_X = $01;
OPTION_Y = $02;
OPTION_Z = $04;
var
Options: Byte;
begin
Options := OPTION_X or OPTION_Y; //actually 3, like in your example
//check if option_X is set
if (Options and OPTION_X) = OPTION_X then
ShowMessage('Option X is set'); //this message is shown, because the bit is set
//check if option_Z is set
if (Options and OPTION_Z) = OPTION_Z then
ShowMessage('Option Z is set'); //this message is NOT shown
end;
The different OPTION_ constants, are actually masks, in the sense they are used to mask bits to zero (to check if a particular bit is set) or to mask bits to 1 (to set a particular bit).
Consider this fragment:
begin
..
if cbOptionX.Checked then
Options := Options or OPTION_X;
..
the or will mask the first bit to 1. If we start with a Options value (in binary) of 01010000, the resulting Options would be 01010001
01010000
OR 00000001 //OPTION_X
= 01010001
the same value is used to mask all the other bits to 0 to check if a particular bit is set. The if condition, for example: (Options and OPTION_Z) = OPTION_Z, does this:
first it MASKS all the non-interesting bytes of the Option variable to 0. If we consider the last value of 01010001, the operation will result in clearing all the bits, but the first.
01010001
AND 00000001
= 00000001
considering a starting value of 01010000 it will return zero:
01010000
AND 00000001
= 00000000
next, it compares if that value is equal to the mask itself. If it is equal, the bit was set in the original Options variable, otherwise it was not set. If your mask contains only one bit, that's matter of taste, you can just check if the resulting value is, for example, different than 0, but if your mask contains multiple bits and you want to check if all the bits was set, you have to check for equality.

Answer 2

Delphi has a predefined type TIntegerSet which allows to use set operators. Assuming that options is an Integer, you can check if any bit (0-based) is set like this:
option1 := 0 in TIntegerSet(options); { Bit 0 is set? }
option3 := 2 in TIntegerSet(options); { Bit 2 is set? }
Changing the options is done via Include or Exclude:
Include(TIntegerSet(options), 0); { set bit 0 }
Exclude(TIntegerSet(options), 2); { reset bit 2 }
Of course you can use any other set operator that may be helpful.

Answer 3

Delphi has Bitwise Operators for manipulating individual bits of integer types. Look at the shl, shr, and, or, and xor operators. To combine bits, use the or operator. To test for bits, use the and operator. For example, assuming these constants:
const
Option1 = 0x0001;
Option2 = 0x0002;
Option3 = 0x0004;
The or operator looks at the bits of both input values and produces an output value that has a 1 bit in places where either input value has a 1 bit. So combining bits would look like this:
var
Value: Integer;
begin
Value := Option1 or Option2;
{
00000000000000000000000000000001 Option1
00000000000000000000000000000010 Option2
-------------------------------- OR
00000000000000000000000000000011 Result
}
...
end;
The and operator looks at the bits of both input values and produces an output value that has a 1 bit only in places where both input value have a 1 bit, otherwise it produces a 0 bit instead. So testing for bits would look like this:
var
Value: Integer;
Option1Set: Boolean;
Option2Set: Boolean;
Option3Set: Boolean;
begin
Value := 7; // Option1 or Option2 or Option3
Option1Set := (Value and Option1) = Option1;
{
00000000000000000000000000000111 Value
00000000000000000000000000000001 Option1
-------------------------------- AND
00000000000000000000000000000001 Result
}
Option2Set := (Value and Option2) = Option2;
{
00000000000000000000000000000111 Value
00000000000000000000000000000010 Option2
-------------------------------- AND
00000000000000000000000000000010 Result
}
Option3Set := (Value and Option3) = Option3;
{
00000000000000000000000000000111 Value
00000000000000000000000000000100 Option3
-------------------------------- AND
00000000000000000000000000000100 Result
}
...
end;