XOR

The exclusive-or operation takes two inputs and returns a 1 if either one or the other of the inputs is a 1, but not if both are. That is, if both inputs are 1 or both inputs are 0, it returns 0. Bitwise exclusive-or, with the operator of a caret, ^, performs the exclusive-or operation on each pair of bits. Exclusive-or is commonly abbreviated XOR.

For instance, if you have two numbers represented in binary as 10101010 and 01110010 then taking the bitwise XOR results in 11011000. It's easier to see this if the bits are lined up correctly:

01110010 ^
10101010 
--------
11011000

You can think of XOR in the following way: you have some bit, either 1 or 0, that we'll call A. When you take A XOR 0, then you always get A back: if A is 1, you get 1, and if A is 0, you get 0. On the other hand, when you take A XOR 1, you flip A. If A is 0, you get 1; if A is 1, you get 0.