How can I extract individual bits from a byte in Go?

How do I get the bits from a byte in golang?

Understanding the Problem

The question poses a challenge: given a byte, how can we extract its individual bits? This operation is essential for tasks like calculating the Hamming distance between bytes.

Bit Manipulation in Go

Go provides various bitwise operators to manipulate bits. The key to extracting bits lies in using the bitwise AND operator (&).

Specific Method

To get the nth bit of a byte, we use a mask that is the number 2(n-1). For instance, to get the first bit of byte(1), we use the mask 20, which is byte(1). We then perform a bitwise AND operation:

<code class="go">result = byte(1) & byte(1) // Output: 1</code>

If the result is equal to the mask, it means the bit is 1; otherwise, it's 0.

Example: Calculating Hamming Distance

Here's a sample function for calculating the Hamming distance between two arrays of bytes:

<code class="go">func hamming(a, b []byte) (int, error) {
    diff := 0
    for i := 0; i < len(a); i++ {
        for j := 0; j < 8; j++ {
            mask := byte(1 << uint(j))
            if (a[i] & mask) != (b[i] & mask) {
                diff++
            }
        }
    }
    return diff, nil
}</code>

This function calculates the Hamming distance efficiently by using bit manipulation to compare individual bits between two bytes.

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