[Tutor] What is the augmented assignment operator "^="

[Alan Gauld]

"Dick Moores" <rdm at rcblue.com> wrote

> Thanks, Andre! I've got it for the three operators, for non-negative
> integers. But I'm not sure I understand how negative integers work.
> For example, is 3 & -3 = 1
> because it is 11 & -11 = 01, and that's because one of the first
> digits of 11 and -11 is not 1, and both of their 2nd digits ARE 1, 
> Q.E.D.?

Remember that the digits are 32 bits long so 3 is not  11
but
00000000000000000000000000000000011

And the representation of negative numbers is more complex
than you might think.

You can see the full hex representations using struct:

>>> import struct
>>> struct.pack('i',-3)
'\xfd\xff\xff\xff'
>>> struct.pack('i',3)
'\x03\x00\x00\x00'

Since most of 3 is zeros the and results will be zro, so
lets look at the significant bits:

>>> 0xfd & 0x03
1
>>>

voila!

> Also, of what practical use are these things?

Take a look at my Using the OS topic, there is a side-bar(box)
just short of half way down that describes how these can be
used to test file status. There are many other uses too, but
that's one real-world case.

HTH,

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld