this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Why can't I use the '|' bitwise operator in this statement? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by milon@lemm.ee to c/python@programming.dev
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if coin == 25 | 10 | 5:

If I replace the '|' with 'or' the code runs just fine. I'm not sure why I can't use '|' in the same statement.

Doing the following doesn't work either:

if coin == 25 | coin == 10 | coin == 5:

I know bitwise operators can only be used with integers, but other then that is there another difference from logical operators?

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[โ€“] yardy_sardley@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago

|| is the logical OR in most languages I know of, but I'm pretty sure python only has the or keyword, no shorthand.

Bitwise OR applies the logic to the individual bits in the underlying data. Think about how you would add two large numbers by hand. Write one number above the other and add at each position. Bitwise or is like that, except you OR the two bits in each position instead of adding them.

In your example (you can do an OR with n inputs, the result is 1 if any input is 1):

11001 25
01010 10
00101 5
----- OR
11111 31

So your code is actually being interpreted as if coin == 31: