What are the differences between bitwise and logical AND operators in C/C++?

14 Jul, 2022
A Bitwise And operator is represented as ‘&’ and a logical operator is represented as ‘&&’. The following are some basic differences between the two operators.
a) The logical and operator ‘&&’ expects its operands to be boolean expressions (either 1 or 0) and returns a boolean value. The bitwise and operator ‘&’ work on Integral (short, int, unsigned, char, bool, unsigned char, long) values and return Integral value. 
C++
C
#include<iostream>using namespace std;int main(){    int x = 3;  //...0011    int y = 7;  //...0111     // A typical use of '&&'    if (y > 1 && y > x)      cout<<"y is greater than 1 AND x\n";     // A typical use of '&'    int z = x & y;   // 0011        cout<<"z = "<< z;     return 0;} // this code is contributed by shivanisinghss2110
#include<stdio.h>int main(){    int x = 3;  //...0011    int y = 7;  //...0111     // A typical use of '&&'    if (y > 1 && y > x)      printf("y is greater than 1 AND x\n");     // A typical use of '&'    int z = x & y;   // 0011        printf ("z = %d", z);     return 0;}
y is greater than 1 AND x
z = 3
Time Complexity: O(1)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)
b) If an integral value is used as an operand for ‘&&’ which is supposed to work on boolean values, the following rule is used in C. .....Zero is considered as false and non-zero is considered as true. 
For example in the following program x and y are considered as 1.  
C++
C
#include<iostream>using namespace std; // Example that uses non-boolean expression as// operand for '&&'int main(){   int x = 2, y = 5;   cout<<" "<< x&&y;   return 0;} //this code is contributed by shivanisinghss2110
#include<stdio.h>// Example that uses non-boolean expression as// operand for '&&'int main(){   int x = 2, y = 5;   printf("%d", x&&y);   return 0;}
1
Time Complexity: O(1)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)
It is compiler error to use the non-integral expression as operand for bitwise &. For example the following program shows compiler error. 
C
#include<stdio.h>// Example that uses non-integral expression as// operator for '&'int main(){   float x = 2.0, y = 5.0;   printf("%d", x&y);   return 0;}
Output: 
error: invalid operands to binary & (have 'float' and 'float')
Time Complexity: O(1)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)
c) The ‘&&’ operator doesn’t evaluate the second operand if the first operand becomes false. Similarly ‘||’ doesn’t evaluate the second operand when first operand becomes true. The bitwise ‘&’ and ‘|’ operators always evaluate their operands. 
C++
C
#include <iostream>using namespace std;int main(){    int x = 0;     // 'Geeks in &&' is NOT    // printed because x is 0    printf("%d\n", (x && printf("Geeks in && ")));     // 'Geeks in &' is  printed    printf("%d\n", (x & printf("Geeks in & ")));     return 0;}//this code is contributed by aditya942003patil
#include<stdio.h>int main(){    int x = 0;     // 'Geeks in &&' is NOT    // printed because x is 0    printf("%d\n", (x && printf("Geeks in && ")));     // 'Geeks in &' is  printed    printf("%d\n", (x & printf("Geeks in & ")));     return 0;}
0
Geeks in & 0
Time Complexity: O(1)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)
The same differences are there between logical OR ‘||’ and bitwise OR ‘|’.
This article is contributed by Ujjwal Jain. Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above. 
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