How does the MaxScript swapBytes function work in terms of bit operators? - bit-manipulation

Function Definition:
bit.swapBytes <integer> <integer byte1> <integer byte2>
Returns an integer with byte1 and byte2 of value int swapped. Byte 1
is the lowest order byte.
I was looking over the documentation for bit shifting in Max Script and came across this function, but to help understand it better I was wondering if it can be written in bit operators like in Python, so I can better understand what this function is doing. Also, does byte 1 have to be the lowest order byte?

It does exactly how it is written in documentation:
bit.swapBytes <integer> <integer byte1> <integer byte2>
Returns an integer with bytes byte1 and byte2 of value int swapped.
Byte 1 is the lowest order byte.
Let's take a look into example:
Note, 0xaa (byte 3) was swapped with 0xbb (byte 2). Here is how you can check it in depth with Calculator:

Related

c++ combining 2 uint8_t into one uint16_t not working?

So I have a little piece of code that takes 2 uint8_t's and places then next to each other, and then returns a uint16_t. The point is not adding the 2 variables, but putting them next to each other and creating a uint16_t from them.
The way I expect this to work is that when the first uint8_t is 0, and the second uint8_t is 1, I expect the uint16_t to also be one.
However, this is in my code not the case.
This is my code:
uint8_t *bytes = new uint8_t[2];
bytes[0] = 0;
bytes[1] = 1;
uint16_t out = *((uint16_t*)bytes);
It is supposed to make the bytes uint8_t pointer into a uint16_t pointer, and then take the value. I expect that value to be 1 since x86 is little endian. However it returns 256.
Setting the first byte to 1 and the second byte to 0 makes it work as expected. But I am wondering why I need to switch the bytes around in order for it to work.
Can anyone explain that to me?
Thanks!
There is no uint16_t or compatible object at that address, and so the behaviour of *((uint16_t*)bytes) is undefined.
I expect that value to be 1 since x86 is little endian. However it returns 256.
Even if the program was fixed to have well defined behaviour, your expectation is backwards. In little endian, the least significant byte is stored in the lowest address. Thus 2 byte value 1 is stored as 1, 0 and not 0, 1.
Does endianess also affect the order of the bit's in the byte or not?
There is no way to access a bit by "address"1, so there is no concept of endianness. When converting to text, bits are conventionally shown most significant on left and least on right; just like digits of decimal numbers. I don't know if this is true in right to left writing systems.
1 You can sort of create "virtual addresses" for bits using bitfields. The order of bitfields i.e. whether the first bitfield is most or least significant is implementation defined and not necessarily related to byte endianness at all.
Here is a correct way to set two octets as uint16_t. The result will depend on endianness of the system:
// no need to complicate a simple example with dynamic allocation
uint16_t out;
// note that there is an exception in language rules that
// allows accessing any object through narrow (unsigned) char
// or std::byte pointers; thus following is well defined
std::byte* data = reinterpret_cast<std::byte*>(&out);
data[0] = 1;
data[1] = 0;
Note that assuming that input is in native endianness is usually not a good choice, especially when compatibility across multiple systems is required, such as when communicating through network, or accessing files that may be shared to other systems.
In these cases, the communication protocol, or the file format typically specify that the data is in specific endianness which may or may not be the same as the native endianness of your target system. De facto standard in network communication is to use big endian. Data in particular endianness can be converted to native endianness using bit shifts, as shown in Frodyne's answer for example.
In a little endian system the small bytes are placed first. In other words: The low byte is placed on offset 0, and the high byte on offset 1 (and so on). So this:
uint8_t* bytes = new uint8_t[2];
bytes[0] = 1;
bytes[1] = 0;
uint16_t out = *((uint16_t*)bytes);
Produces the out = 1 result you want.
However, as you can see this is easy to get wrong, so in general I would recommend that instead of trying to place stuff correctly in memory and then cast it around, you do something like this:
uint16_t out = lowByte + (highByte << 8);
That will work on any machine, regardless of endianness.
Edit: Bit shifting explanation added.
x << y means to shift the bits in x y places to the left (>> moves them to the right instead).
If X contains the bit-pattern xxxxxxxx, and Y contains the bit-pattern yyyyyyyy, then (X << 8) produces the pattern: xxxxxxxx00000000, and Y + (X << 8) produces: xxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy.
(And Y + (X<<8) + (Z<<16) produces zzzzzzzzxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy, etc.)
A single shift to the left is the same as multiplying by 2, so X << 8 is the same as X * 2^8 = X * 256. That means that you can also do: Y + (X*256) + (Z*65536), but I think the shifts are clearer and show the intent better.
Note that again: Endianness does not matter. Shifting 8 bits to the left will always clear the low 8 bits.
You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operation. Note the difference between Arithmetic and Logical shifts - in C/C++ unsigned values use logical shifts, and signed use arithmetic shifts.
If p is a pointer to some multi-byte value, then:
"Little-endian" means that the byte at p is the least-significant byte, in other words, it contains bits 0-7 of the value.
"Big-endian" means that the byte at p is the most-significant byte, which for a 16-bit value would be bits 8-15.
Since the Intel is little-endian, bytes[0] contains bits 0-7 of the uint16_t value and bytes[1] contains bits 8-15. Since you are trying to set bit 0, you need:
bytes[0] = 1; // Bits 0-7
bytes[1] = 0; // Bits 8-15
Your code works but your misinterpreted how to read "bytes"
#include <cstdint>
#include <cstddef>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
uint8_t *in = new uint8_t[2];
in[0] = 3;
in[1] = 1;
uint16_t out = *((uint16_t*)in);
std::cout << "out: " << out << "\n in: " << in[1]*256 + in[0]<< std::endl;
return 0;
}
By the way, you should take care of alignment when casting this way.
One way to think in numbers is to use MSB and LSB order
which is MSB is the highest Bit and LSB ist lowest Bit for
Little Endian machines.
For ex.
(u)int32: MSB:Bit 31 ... LSB: Bit 0
(u)int16: MSB:Bit 15 ... LSB: Bit 0
(u)int8 : MSB:Bit 7 ... LSB: Bit 0
with your cast to a 16Bit value the Bytes will arrange like this
16Bit <= 8Bit 8Bit
MSB ... LSB BYTE[1] BYTE[0]
Bit15 Bit0 Bit7 .. 0 Bit7 .. 0
0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000
which is 256 -> correct value.

16-bit to 10-bit conversion code explanation

I came across the following code to convert 16-bit numbers to 10-bit numbers and store it inside an integer. Could anyone maybe explain to me what exactly is happening with the AND 0x03?
// Convert the data to 10-bits
int xAccl = (((data[1] & 0x03) * 256) + data[0]);
if(xAccl > 511) {
xAccl -= 1024;
}
Link to where I got the code: https://www.instructables.com/id/Measurement-of-Acceleration-Using-ADXL345-and-Ardu/
The bitwise operator & will make a mask, so in this case, it voids the 6 highest bits of the integer.
Basically, this code does a modulo % 1024 (for unsigned values).
data[1] takes the 2nd byte; & 0x03 masks that byte with binary 11 - so: takes 2 bits; * 256 is the same as << 8 - i.e. pushes those 2 bits into the 9th and 10th positions; adding data[0] to data combines these two bytes (personally I'd have used |, not +).
So; xAccl is now the first 10 bits, using big-endian ordering.
The > 511 seems to be a sign check; essentially, it is saying "if the 10th bit is set, treat the entire thing as a negative integer as though we'd used 10-bit twos complement rules".

Shift left/right adding zeroes/ones and dropping first bits

I've got to program a function that receives
a binary number like 10001, and
a decimal number that indicates how many shifts I should perform.
The problem is that if I use the C++ operator <<, the zeroes are pushed from behind but the first numbers aren't dropped... For example
shifLeftAddingZeroes(10001,1)
returns 100010 instead of 00010 that is what I want.
I hope I've made myself clear =P
I assume you are storing that information in int. Take into consideration, that this number actually has more leading zeroes than what you see, ergo your number is most likely 16 bits, meaning 00000000 00000001 . Maybe try AND-ing it with number having as many 1 as the number you want to have after shifting? (Assuming you want to stick to bitwise operations).
What you want is to bit shift and then limit the number of output bits which can be active (hold a value of 1). One way to do this is to create a mask for the number of bits you want, then AND the bitshifted value with that mask. Below is a code sample for doing that, just replace int_type with the type of value your using -- or make it a template type.
int_type shiftLeftLimitingBitSize(int_type value, int numshift, int_type numbits=some_default) {
int_type mask = 0;
for (unsigned int bit=0; bit < numbits; bit++) {
mask += 1 << bit;
}
return (value << numshift) & mask;
}
Your output for 10001,1 would now be shiftLeftLimitingBitSize(0b10001, 1, 5) == 0b00010.
Realize that unless your numbits is exactly the length of your integer type, you will always have excess 0 bits on the 'front' of your number.

What is this doing: "input >> 4 & 0x0F"?

I don't understand what this code is doing at all, could someone please explain it?
long input; //just here to show the type, assume it has a value stored
unsigned int output( input >> 4 & 0x0F );
Thanks
bitshifts the input 4 bits to the right, then masks by the lower 4 bits.
Take this example 16 bit number: (the dots are just for visual separation)
1001.1111.1101.1001 >> 4 = 0000.1001.1111.1101
0000.1001.1111.1101 & 0x0F = 1101 (or 0000.0000.0000.1101 to be more explicit)
& is the bitwise AND operator. "& 0x0F" is sometimes done to pad the first 4 bits with 0s, or ignore the first(leftmost) 4 bits in a value.
0x0f = 00001111. So a bitwise & operation of 0x0f with any other bit pattern will retain only the rightmost 4 bits, clearing the left 4 bits.
If the input has a value of 01010001, after doing &0x0F, we'll get 00000001 - which is a pattern we get after clearing the left 4 bits.
Just as another example, this is a code I've used in a project:
Byte verflag = (Byte)(bIsAck & 0x0f) | ((version << 4) & 0xf0). Here I'm combining two values into a single Byte value to save space because it's being used in a packet header structure. bIsAck is a BOOL and version is a Byte whose value is very small. So both these values can be contained in a single Byte variable.
The first nibble in the resultant variable will contain the value of version and the second nibble will contain the value of bIsAck. I can retrieve the values into separate variables at the receiving by doing a 4 bits >> while taking the value of version.
Hope this is somewhere near to what you asked for.
That is doing a bitwise right shift the contents of "input" by 4 bits, then doing a bitwise AND of the result with 0x0F (1101).
What it does depends on the contents and type of "input". Is it an int? A long? A string (which would mean the shift and bitwise AND are being done on a pointer to the first byte).
Google for "c++ bitwise operations" for more details on what's going on under the hood.
Additionally, look at C++ operator precedence because the C/C++ precedence is not exactly the same as in many other languages.

How to use high and low bytes?

I am trying to represent 32768 using 2 bytes. For the high byte, do I use the same values as the low byte and it will interpret them differently or do I put the actual values? So would I put something like
32678 0 or 256 0? Or neither of those? Any help is appreciated.
In hexadecimal, your number is 0x8000 which is 0x80 and 0x00.
To get the low byte from the input, use low=input & 0xff and to get the high byte, use high=(input>>8) & 0xff.
Get the input back from the low and high byes like so: input=low | (high<<8).
Make sure the integer types you use are big enough to store these numbers. On 16-bit systems, unsigned int/short or signed/unsigned long should be be large enough.
Bytes can only contain values from 0 to 255, inclusive. 32768 is 0x8000, so the high byte is 128 and the low byte is 0.
Try this function.
Pass your Hi_Byte and Lo_Byte to the function, it returns the value as Word.
WORD MAKE_WORD( const BYTE Byte_hi, const BYTE Byte_lo)
{
return (( Byte_hi << 8 ) | Byte_lo & 0x00FF );
}
Pointers can do this easily, are MUCH FASTER than shifts and requires no processor math.
Check this answer
BUT:
If I understood your problem, you need up to 32768 stored in 2 bytes, so you need 2 unsigned int's, or 1 unsigned long.
Just change int for long and char for int, and you're good to go.
32768 is 0x8000, so you would put 0x80 (128) in your high byte and 0 in your low byte.
That's assuming unsigned values, of course. 32768 isn't actually a legal value for a signed 16-bit value.
32768 in hex is 0080 on a little-endian platform. The "high" (second in our case) byte contains 128, and the "low" one 0.