How to flip bit fields in T-SQL?

Question

I'm trying to flip a bit field in SQL Server using an update query, that is, I want to make all the 0's into 1's and vice versa. What's the most elegant solution?

There doesn't seem to be a bitwise NOT operator in T-SQL (unless I'm missing something obvious) and I haven't been able to find any other way of performing the update.

Answer 1

You don't need a bitwise-not for this -- just XOR it with 1 / true.

To check it:

select idColumn, bitFieldY, bitFieldY ^ 1 as Toggled from tableX 

To update:

update tableX set bitFieldY = bitFieldY ^ 1 where ... 

MSDN T-SQL Exclusive-OR (^)