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Bitwise operators (Transact-SQL)

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Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW) SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric SQL database in Microsoft Fabric

Bitwise operators perform bit manipulations between two expressions of any of the data types of the integer data type category.

Bitwise operators convert two integer values to binary bits, perform the AND, OR, or NOT operation on each bit, producing a result. Then converts the result to an integer.

For example, the integer 170 converts to binary 1010 1010.

The integer 75 converts to binary 0100 1011.

Operator Bitwise math
AND

If bits at any position are both 1, the result is 1.		 1010 1010 = 170
0100 1011 = 75
-----------------
0000 1010 = 10
OR

If either bit at any position is 1, the result is 1.		 1010 1010 = 170
0100 1011 = 75
-----------------
1110 1011 = 235
NOT

Reverses the bit value at every bit position.		 1010 1010 = 170
-----------------
0101 0101 = 85

The following articles provide more information about the bitwise operators available in the Database Engine:

The following bitwise operators were introduced in SQL Server 2022 (16.x):

Operands for bitwise operators can be any one of the data types of the integer or binary string data type categories (except for the image data type), except that both operands can't be any one of the data types of the binary string data type category. The following table shows the supported operand data types.

Left operand Right operand
binary int, smallint, or tinyint
bit int, smallint, tinyint, or bit
bigint bigint, int, smallint, tinyint, binary, or varbinary
int int, smallint, tinyint, binary, or varbinary
smallint int, smallint, tinyint, binary, or varbinary
tinyint int, smallint, tinyint, binary, or varbinary
varbinary int, smallint, or tinyint

See also