Reverse bit pattern in C

Question

I am converting a number to binary and have to use putchar to output each number.

The problem is that I am getting the order in reverse.

Is there anyway to reverse a numbers bit pattern before doing my own stuff to it?

As in int n has a specific bit pattern - how can I reverse this bit pattern?

Answer 1

There are many ways to do this, some very fast. I had to look it up.

Reverse bits in a byte

b = ((b * 0x0802LU & 0x22110LU) | (b * 0x8020LU & 0x88440LU)) * 0x10101LU >> 16; 

Reverse an N-bit quantity in parallel in 5 * lg(N) operations:

unsigned int v; // 32-bit word to reverse bit order

// swap odd and even bits
v = ((v >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((v & 0x55555555) << 1);
// swap consecutive pairs
v = ((v >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((v & 0x33333333) << 2);
// swap nibbles ... 
v = ((v >> 4) & 0x0F0F0F0F) | ((v & 0x0F0F0F0F) << 4);
// swap bytes
v = ((v >> 8) & 0x00FF00FF) | ((v & 0x00FF00FF) << 8);
// swap 2-byte long pairs
v = ( v >> 16             ) | ( v               << 16);

Reverse bits in word by lookup table

static const unsigned char BitReverseTable256[256] = 
{
#   define R2(n)     n,     n + 2*64,     n + 1*64,     n + 3*64
#   define R4(n) R2(n), R2(n + 2*16), R2(n + 1*16), R2(n + 3*16)
#   define R6(n) R4(n), R4(n + 2*4 ), R4(n + 1*4 ), R4(n + 3*4 )
    R6(0), R6(2), R6(1), R6(3)
};

unsigned int v; // reverse 32-bit value, 8 bits at time
unsigned int c; // c will get v reversed

// Option 1:
c = (BitReverseTable256[v & 0xff] << 24) | 
    (BitReverseTable256[(v >> 8) & 0xff] << 16) | 
    (BitReverseTable256[(v >> 16) & 0xff] << 8) |
    (BitReverseTable256[(v >> 24) & 0xff]);

// Option 2:
unsigned char * p = (unsigned char *) &v;
unsigned char * q = (unsigned char *) &c;
q[3] = BitReverseTable256[p[0]]; 
q[2] = BitReverseTable256[p[1]]; 
q[1] = BitReverseTable256[p[2]]; 
q[0] = BitReverseTable256[p[3]];

Please look at http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#ReverseParallel for more information and references.