What is the Function of the Caret Operator (^) in Python Bitwise XOR Operations?

What Does the Caret (^) Operator Do?

The caret (^) operator in Python performs bitwise exclusive OR (XOR) operations. XOR evaluates to True if and only if its operands differ (one is True and the other is False).

Bitwise XOR Operations

In bitwise XOR, each bit position of the operands is compared, and the result is True if and only if the bits differ. For example, consider the bitwise XOR of 1 and 0:

• Binary representation of 1: 0001
• Binary representation of 0: 0000
• Bitwise XOR: 0001 XOR 0000 = 0001 (True)

Example from Question

In the provided code, the XOR operator is applied to various numbers:

>>> 8^3
11

To understand the result, convert the numbers to binary:

• 8 (binary): 1000
• 3 (binary): 0011
• Bitwise XOR: 1000 XOR 0011 = 1011 (binary)
• Convert back to decimal: 1011 (binary) = 11 (decimal)

This matches the output observed in the code.

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