python - Logical vs bitwise

Question

What the different between logical operators and, or and bitwise analogs &, | in usage? Is there any difference in efficiency in various solutions?

Answer 1

Logical operators operate on logical values, while bitwise operators operate on integer bits. Stop thinking about performance, and use them for they're meant for.

if x and y: # logical operation
   ...
z = z & 0xFF # bitwise operation

Answer 2

Bitwise = Bit by bit checking

Example

Bitwise AND: 1011 & 0101 = 0001
Bitwise OR: 1011 | 0101 = 1111

Logical = Logical checking or in other words, you can say True/False checking

Example

Logical AND: 1011 && 0101 = 1 (True) # both are non-zero so the result is True
Logical AND: 1011 && 0000 = 0 (False) # one number is zero so the result is False 
Logical OR: 1011 || 0000 = 1 (True) # one number is non-zero so the result is non-zero which is True
Logical OR: 0000 || 0000 = 0 (False) # both numbers are zero so the result is zero which is False

Answer 3

Logical operators are used for booleans, since true equals 1 and false equals 0. If you use (binary) numbers other than 1 and 0, then any number that's not zero becomes a one.
Ex: int x = 5; (101 in binary) int y = 0; (0 in binary) In this case, printing x && y would print 0, because 101 was changed to 1, and 0 was kept at zero: this is the same as printing true && false, which returns false (0).

On the other hand, bitwise operators perform an operation on every single bit of the two operands (hence the term "bitwise").
Ex: int x = 5; int y = 8; printing x | y (bitwise OR) would calculate this:
000101 (5)
| 1000 (8)
-----------
= 1101 (13)
Meaning it would print 13.