Search⌘ K
Home
Courses
Grokking Bit Manipulation for Coding Interviews

Solution Review: Get First Set Bit Position

Explore the method to identify the position of the first set bit in a number using bitwise right shift and AND operations. Understand the constant time algorithm and its implementation to enhance your problem-solving skills in bit manipulation.

We'll cover the following...

Solution review

We check the right-most significant bit to see if the bit and & operation of 1 yields to 1.

In other words, we shift bits until the right MSB and & operation with 1 yields 1.

Algorithm

  • If n == 0, return;
  • Initialize k = 1
  • Loop
    • If ((n >> (k - 1)) & 1) == 0
...