Talk:Logical shift

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Renaming[edit]

I think the article name, "logical shift", is a bit of a misnomer. In programming languages, logical operators (such as AND, OR, etc) are often divided into "logical" (operators that operate on the entire value, eg, && and || in C) and "bitwise" (operators that operate on each bit of the value, eg, & and |). In this context, a "logical shift" wouldn't make any sense as it obviously operates on the bit-level. Thus, I propose the new name of "bitwise shift". If noone complains, I will eventually rename it. -- intgr 04:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of whether the name is sensible from the perspective of higher-level languages, it is the name used throughtout Computer Science when talking about the assembly/machine code instructions, in contrast with the arithmetic shift which propagates the sign bit. --Safalra 20:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion: bitwise rotation[edit]

Also, the article should be expanded to include the concept of bitwise rotations. Rotations are often used in cryptography where no data can be lost but where the function is a very simple way to achieve diffusion. -- intgr 04:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is discussed (briefly) in the Circular shift article (although the operation is generally called a rotation when writing about assembly/machine code). --Safalra 20:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]