Description of Bit Operations
When compressing and uncompressing data, often we need to perform operations on less than a single byte. Therefore, before discussing various methods of data compression, it is important to become familiar with some basic operations for working with data one bit at a time. These operations are necessary because bit operators in C work only with intrinsic integral operands, which are small. The operations presented in this section work with buffers containing any number of bits. Note that the set of operations presented here is rather incomplete. Specifically, only those that are used in this chapter and in Chapter 15, are defined.
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